


Keith, That's Gay

by flyingisland, lemoninagin



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awkward Conversations, Awkward Sexual Situations, Awkward everything ok, Being Walked In On, Drunken Singing, Eventual Smut, Everyone else knowing how gay this is and being completely over the tension, F/F, F/M, Lance and Keith being forced to bond or else voltron will suffer, M/M, Masturbation, Oblivious Keith (Voltron), Sexual Fantasy, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Space Angst, Space memes....., Switching, Travel to other planets, Trope Subversion/Inversion, Wet Dream, at least Pidge is enjoying this shitshow, but Lance is having some trouble focusing, do not underestimate the prophecies, or is he...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-08-11 00:44:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 154,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7868509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingisland/pseuds/flyingisland, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemoninagin/pseuds/lemoninagin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“But Keith,” Lance exclaims, jumping to his feet in an attempt at emphasis. “That’s gay, dude.”</p><p>Keith stares like he doesn’t understand, head cocked innocently. He shrugs, and Lance gets an intense urge to shake him.</p><p>“That’s really, really gay!”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Damn Your Tantalizing Silky Mullet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NerdyOatmeal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NerdyOatmeal/gifts).
  * Translation into Français available: [[TRADUCTION] Keith, C'est Gay](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8406895) by [DracoSH](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DracoSH/pseuds/DracoSH)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To nerdyoatmeal, who has commented on and followed my trash since...forever, I think. So, have some more garbage <3
> 
>  **Edited** : As per our typical collab fashion, Moth (flyingisland) and I are alternating writing chapters, so she will be doing the next one! We've decided to make this a little longer than we said originally (unsure how many chapters, but tbh we could go on for a while if we get carried away enough haha). Times for when/what days are subject to change, but definitely updated weekly. Enjoy~

 

Legs spread wide, panting out erratic breaths as his palm slides roughly up and down over his erection, Lance bites his lip. The images appear in his mind before he can stop them - and for sure he can’t stop his movements, strokes only becoming unfortunately more frenzied at what he imagines.

 

_Long, silky black hair that tickles when it brushes against his neck, a broad chest glistening with sweat for entirely different reasons than usual, firm pectoral muscles flexing and abs rippling on the figure beneath him with every powerful thrust he makes, thick brows furrowed in pleasure rather than anger or a sulky pout, a familiar cracking voice murmuring garbled begging words and moans into his ear._

 

Lance grits his teeth, curses flying freely as his pace increases in part fury, part being more turned on than he ever has been in his life. As precum drips hotly between the hurried press of his fingers, he shifts, wondering if maybe doing this from a different angle will make it all go away.

 

It’s futile though, nothing’s working anymore. Correction - nothing has been. Envisioning breasts that only keep flattening out, imagining girlish giggles evolves into deeply pitched groans. Curvy, voluptuous figures morph into narrow waists and lean muscle, cute, well-styled haircuts become that haunting terrible one he knows all too well.

 

How could this have happened? Why is this happening?

 

He doesn’t understand. His frustration mixes with his ecstasy, burning thick waves of shame with every betraying buck of his hips. He wants to stop, but he can’t stop. The fact his body is so eager for this almost makes him nauseous.

 

_A gentle and infuriatingly handsome smile, full lips catching teeth on his collarbone, a string of praises instead of taunts. So many ‘please, Lance, faster’’s and ‘harder, harder, don’t stop’’s bouncing off that quick-witted, cocky, totally-not-female tongue._

 

Almost, Lance thinks, heated coil unwinding fast and low in his stomach, and he’s unsure for a moment if he’s going to lose his lunch or come.

 

But then orgasm overshadows any unpleasant feelings, thankfully taking along the last of those images rolling like a reel of the highest quality porn. A name he should never, _ever_ utter during a time like this tears from his lips. He slams his mouth shut tight afterwards, even though it’s much too late to take back the terrible crime he’s committed. Disgust runs through him while sticky globs of cum roll down his wrist. He’s too distraught to gather enough energy to move to clean himself up.

 

He throws his head back against the wall hard, wondering if maybe bashing his skull against it a few hundred times might at least help him forget this tragedy. He’s having trouble processing what the fuck exactly even occurred, besides the obvious fact that his fantasies have incredibly poor taste tonight. Trying to catch his breath, desperate eyes turned to the ceiling, he can only utter one last word.

 

“Why?!”

  
  


* * *

  


It’s only lunchtime, and Lance has already decided to antagonize him for no apparent reason other than the fact that he exists.

 

Keith had been quietly picking at the alien goo soup they were all eating, intending to finish enough to maintain a decent blood sugar level so he could go train, when Lance set his spoon dramatically down with a loud clang, grabbing mostly everyone’s attention. Hunk and Pidge are discussing some technical jargon he doesn’t quite understand, and they are so invested in it that they are currently ignoring Lance’s sudden oncoming hissy fit.

 

“Could you be any more annoying today, Keith?!” Lance huffs, as if that is a completely reasonable place to go.

 

Keith raises a brow, pausing mid-bite. Shiro perks up from his position settled across from them at the table, giving a fatherly warning glare in Lance’s direction. Allura and Coran turn to Lance as well to observe what the commotion is even about.

 

“Excuse me?” Keith asks, tilting his head as his mood instantly sours. He doesn’t understand the attack, all he’s doing is eating. It’s as if every time they get a peaceful moment, Lance has to try his best to ruin it.

 

Lance snorts, looking like he’d prefer to jab his spoon into Keith’s neck. “Yeah, you should excuse yourself, mullet!” he spits angrily, crossing his arms. “I mean, honestly, could you breathe any louder?”

 

Keith places his spoon down firmly. He didn’t sleep well last night, and he is in no mood to deal with this today. “Are you seriously trying to pick a fight with me because of the way I’m _breathing_?”

 

Lance remains indignant. “Obviously, since you sound like a fat, asthmatic old man who’s competing in a triathlon! So shut your quiznak already, I’m trying to eat here!”

 

“Lance!” Allura and Shiro exclaim simultaneously, only differing in the fact Allura adds for him to ‘mind his language’.

 

Allura’s face, appalled, sets into a deep frown. Shiro seems on the verge of getting out of his seat to maybe smack Lance upside the head. Pidge laughs, shifting her attention from her conversation at the yelled insult instantly, as if she has some sort of sensors in her brain that sound an alarm whenever shit is about to go down.

 

“Wait, why would an old man participate in a triathlon? Especially if he has asthma and is overweight? That wouldn’t be safe,” Hunk whispers to her, confusion stretched across his face. Pidge only laughs harder, slapping a hand on the table for support as Hunk continues. “This example is so disturbingly specific. Did I miss something? What’s going on?”

 

Keith takes a deep breath, trying to contain his rapidly growing irritation and failing. He hasn’t gotten a chance to train to vent off his usual pent up energy, so this is the absolute worst time Lance could choose to do this. Without his routine workout or a full meal, his temper rises much more easily. He has the sinking feeling Lance is well aware of this fact, too.

 

“Are you suggesting that,” Keith grits his words out slowly, eyebrow twitching, “I should just stop breathing? Is that really what I’m supposed to be taking away from this?”

 

“Well, it would definitely spare us from having to listen to your loud-ass old man panting, so maybe I am,” Lance humphs, leaning back in his seat and propping his feet on the table as he stares Keith down challengingly, as if he’s made some great case for why he doesn’t _deserve to breathe_.

 

Coran, who’s been standing silently on the sidelines simply watching, bats Lance’s legs down with a reprimand about dirtying the table. Lance has the nerve to glower further at Keith as if _he_ was the one to correct him.

 

This is so unfair.

 

“What in the world did I even _do_ for you to backhandedly suggest that I _die_ while we are eating lunch?” Keith flings his arms wide, gesturing helplessly to the others. “Are you guys hearing this nonsense? Someone please tell me I’m not overreacting here!”

 

Pidge removes and wipes off her glasses, which were slightly fogged from how hard she’d been laughing. “I would back you up, but to be perfectly honest, this is entertaining.” She waves an encouraging hand, smiling in a way so not suitable for the situation. “So, please, don’t mind me. Continue.”

 

Keith turns towards Hunk for backup, but he only puts up his palms defensively in front of him.

“Don’t look at me, dude, I am not stepping into the line of fire here. Besides, Lance wouldn’t start anything unless he had a really good reason. Right Lance?”

 

Lance nods, closing his eyes with a smug smile. “Yes, of course. Thank you, Hunk.”

 

Keith stands up at that, balling his hands into fists. He can’t believe this. Has everyone lost their minds today?

 

“He literally just told me to quit breathing while I was simply sitting here being quiet and eating! Not only that, but you all were witnesses, sitting _right here with us_ , when it happened! Why are you acting like you weren’t?! And what could I possibly have done during that time to rationalize that I deserved that?!”

 

“Gee, I don’t know, Keith,” Lance scoffs, rolling his eyes. His face is deeply flushed - probably from anger - as he removes his gaze to the side to sulk in a more flippant manner. “Maybe you could, you know, just be more aware of others and not wheeze like you’re dying already, and then I wouldn’t have to say these things.”

 

“What the hell! That makes no sense at all!”

 

“Lance, why don’t you go cool off somewhere?” Shiro suggests gently, apparently having enough of their bickering. Keith is thankful there are still some people acting rationally in the room - until Shiro says what he does next, that is. “Keith, you as well. Go hit the training deck or something.”

 

 _What the fuck._ Keith gapes in Shiro’s direction.

 

“I agree,” Allura adds, voice stern. “This isn’t conducive to being able to form voltron. You’re both going to throw off our carefully contained balance, and then all our hard work will be for naught - so long as this continues. I cannot allow that. I’ll have to ask the two of you to leave immediately to solve your differences elsewhere.”

 

“What!” Keith’s voice cracks as it rises, incredulous. He was so sure at the very least, Allura would be on his side. “But I didn’t even do anything!”

 

“Yes, well, while that may or may not be true,” Allura admits in the most vague way possible, wiping her mouth with a napkin and then getting up with her empty plate, “You _are_ still involved, and therefore, ipso facto - part of the problem in my eyes. I expect you both to address this issue before the sinquiplet passes - or, I believe, a 'day' as you Earthlings would call it.”

 

With that, Allura strides from the room with Coran trailing obediently after her, whom calls back to tell Shiro to make sure they “heed the Princess’ warnings”. Pidge collapses into more raurous laughter, and if Keith wasn’t so intent on his moral code to never punch children, he’d have knocked her halfway across the room already.

 

“Fine, whatever. I don’t want to be around Keith and his stupid excessively heavy breathing and his dumbass silky mullet anyway! Later, chumps.”

 

Lance pushes himself from the table, throws one last glare Keith’s way, and then stalks off. Leaving his lunch behind unfinished, he stomps so heavily as he goes that they can hear the echo of his footsteps for a solid five minutes afterwards as he makes his way to the lower floor.

 

Everyone continues staring at the area where Lance stood only moments before, all seeming to have the same thought. Keith unclenches his fists, not sure what to make of the situation, and lets his arms fall to his sides. Pidge is no longer laughing. Even Hunk seems perturbed, making a show of cleaning out his ears.

 

“I’m sorry, did he say ‘ _silky_ ’ mullet? We all heard that, right?” Hunk courageously breaks the silence, head snapping back and forth worriedly to everyone to try and confirm he isn’t losing his mind. “Like, is that really something that just happened?”

 

Pidge responds with a question of her own, smile clicking back into place. “Is Lance still going through puberty?”

 

“That’s enough, you two,” Shiro says to them sharply, signalling an abrupt end to the conversation. “We don’t have time to fool around anymore, it’s going to be a busy afternoon. So eat up, and let’s focus on what we need to get done for today.”

 

Both Pidge and Hunk sink a little in their seats at the reprimand, glancing at each other before settling back on finishing their lunches. They all continue eating in silence except for Keith, who finds that his appetite is now gone. Returning to his seat, he stares pensively at his half eaten bowl of mush, so many questions running through his head.

 

Why would Lance try and provoke him out of nowhere like that? He thought they’d been getting along pretty well lately. Sure, not perfectly, but the night before they’d even trained together without a single argument. It had just been the two of them in the room, practicing a few simple martial arts moves that Keith had been helping Lance learn, and it was completely fine. Well, besides the fact Lance left abruptly afterwards with a strange look on his face and barely even said goodbye. Keith had assumed maybe he really needed to use the bathroom or something though.

 

So what brought this on? Was his breathing really that annoying? Even if that was the case, no one else seemed bothered by it. And how does his hair being ‘silky’ add to this equation, if at all?

 

He reaches up to absently touch his hair, curling a few strands between his fingers. It feels the same as it always does - like hair. No adjective comes to mind to describe it, and he wouldn’t go  so far as to say it was ‘silky’ by any means.

 

None of this adds up.

 

Hunk and Pidge finish quickly, giving rushed goodbyes as they explain they are off to work on various tasks. Once they leave, Shiro turns a kind, sympathetic gaze towards Keith. He gets up and walks towards the kitchen to drop off his plates, but pauses by Keith on his way there. He claps a supportive hand onto his shoulder.

 

“Keith, you heard Allura. I’m sorry. I know that it wasn’t your fault, but you’re going to at least need to attempt to be civil with Lance, for forming voltron’s sake.” Shiro lifts his hand, and offers to take his plate. Keith passes it to him numbly. “Try to go easy on him though. We’re all running under some pretty high tension here, so I wouldn’t take it too personally.”

 

High tension, right. How stupid of him to forget. Of course, with them being in charge of saving the universe, there’s a lot of unresolved stress going on behind the scenes. His voice comes out small but resigned when he responds.

 

“...You’re right. Thanks Shiro, I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

  


* * *

 

  
Lance is sitting on the floor in the training room taking a break, back pressed against the wall while gulping down some water, when Keith walks in. His heart rate, which has slowly been levelling out, flutters wildly as it picks back up. The sweat on the back of his neck doubles, his mouth feels like he’s stuffed twenty cottonballs into it at once.

 

“Hey,” Keith greets him carefully, like he’s dealing with a bomb set to go off if he speaks a little less softly. Giving a small wave, as expected, he looks fairly uncomfortable. “Um...I just...you know, Allura wants us to try and ‘bond this out’ or whatever, so I thought I’d come and see how you were doing…”

 

Lance sighs. He irrationally lost his temper back there, and he’s definitely feeling guilty now that he’s had a chance to clear his head - especially since the blood hadn’t been rushing confusingly elsewhere from Keith’s presence. In any case, it’s not like Keith purposefully forced his way into his perverted fantasies last night. He wills the heat in his cheeks to die down, glad he can at least use the excuse of exertion if he needs to.

 

“Sorry about...earlier. I’m fine, buddy, don’t worry about it.”

 

Keith draws closer, hand smoothing over the back of his neck, ruffling his hair like a curtain in the process. “You sure?” he asks, sounding concerned in a way that makes Lance feel like even more of an asshole. “If there’s anything bothering you, you can always talk to me about it if you, uh, want...”

 

No, he really can’t. He really, _really_ can’t say something like, ‘well, Keith, last night I vigorously jacked it to thoughts of you so dirty and depraved, your fantasy self might as well drop out of saving the galaxy and consider starting a career in porn’.

 

Well, he _could_ say that, but he imagines it wouldn’t go over very well.

 

"Naw, really, it's nothing. Just didn't sleep well last night."

 

"Ah, I can relate," Keith says, unexpectedly flopping down next to him. He pulls out and offers a strange looking bar from his pocket, some weird thing that's a sickening shade of bluish-green and appears to be made of worms and woodchips. Lance scrunches his nose at whatever the hell it is, gesturing for him to keep it.

 

His stomach turns when he gets a whiff of the thing, which is reminiscent of a fish left out in the hot sun on a sidewalk, marinating in hot dog water. He has a feeling, though, that the churning in his gut has more to do with how unbelievably close Keith is to him right then. Lance scooches further away from him as subtly as he can manage, highly distracted by the sweet, musky scent emanating from the man in question, which is somehow overriding the awful one.

 

Stupidly, he finds his thoughts drifting back to the night before, back to when those strong hands had first gripped his wrists. They’d never had skin-on-skin contact like that before, either because of having their uniforms on or Keith never seeming to remove those tacky gloves he always wore. But he’d arrived to train without them for whatever reason, probably having actually put them in the wash for once or something.

 

The delicate structure of his hands, the velvety smoothness to them, had shocked Lance. He’d expected them to be more callused from fighting, and a little less...small and fine, much like a woman’s. His fingers could be said to be elegant even, cool and soothing to Lance’s clammy skin as they’d pressed hard into it. Keith encouraged him to utilize what he’d taught him recently about how to get out of his double-hand grab, and Lance had never jumped back so fast in his life.

 

As Keith congratulated him (making some snarky remark about how Lance had "finally retained some useful information" along with it), Lance’s thoughts had started their first descent straight into the gutter - and it really had only been more and more downhill from there.

 

Thinking about how soft Keith’s fingers felt curled around his bare flesh had somehow led Lance to wonder what they’d feel like elsewhere - which _naturally_ was a slippery slope to considering if they might move or act differently had they been touching him more intimately.

 

Would he be gentler then? Would he trail or trace patterns with them slowly over his skin, or would he grip onto Lance so tightly it hurt? Would he scratch, maybe? Drag sharp nails into fleshier areas during the heat of the moment? Or was Keith the type to use them to brush back stray strands of hair or caress his cheek like a real lover might?

 

Lance didn’t know seemingly innocuous things like a man’s hands could have such a creative impact on his sexual fantasies like this, let alone that he would ever consider a man’s _anything_ in that way. Everything hit him all at once, these strange new feelings, and he was still having a little trouble coming to terms with it.

 

As Lance drags his gaze towards Keith after forcing himself to stop thinking about those things before something far more embarrassing happens, he finds Keith munching on the nasty bar.

 

“Dude, sick. What even is that?”

 

“Dunno, found it in the kitchen. Coran says it’s good for energy.” Keith wipes crumbs from his mouth with the back of his sleeve, horrifyingly pulling Lance’s attention to it. “‘s not so bad, though. You should try it. I noticed you didn’t finish your lunch, so I thought you might need the sustenance...”

 

Keith breaks off a piece of the bar - from the goddamn side he’s _already_ put into his perfect mouth - and practically shoves it into Lance’s face, dead set on probably trying to poison him with the suspicious “energy bar” as a form of revenge. Lance digs his fingernails into his thighs to keep from whimpering, because he finds his own stupid mouth opening automatically to take the dreaded thing between his lips.

 

Surprisingly enough, it tastes rich and slightly bitter, like dark chocolate. Keith’s face looms closely to his, a wry smile tugging up it. He’s leaning on one hand, moving forward onto his knees as he holds up some more of the bar, feeding Lance casually like there’s nothing weird or oddly sexually charged about the situation. Lance takes the rest of it, almost dying when the pads of Keith’s fingers just barely brush over him, fingernail catching accidentally on his lower lip.

 

“See? It’s good, right?” Keith’s voice is low, melodious, his head tilting enough that a tuft of hair unfurls over one eye. Sitting back on his knees, he darts out a pink tongue to lick crumbs that have fallen towards his chin, but Lance is focusing more on his cheeks.

 

He has dimples when he smiles. Keith has cute, motherfucking dimples.

 

How had he never noticed before how adorable he is? Lance can’t deal with this.

 

Lance struggles to gulp down what he has left in his mouth, choking over the lump in his throat.

 

“Y-you know, I think I’ve practiced enough today.” Lance waves his hand excessively as he attempts to get out of the room as quickly as he can without Keith noticing anything’s up. “I’ll see you at dinner. Thanks for the weird space bar shit, but I gotta run! I forgot that I have…”

 

Lance fumbles as he stands, then begins walking backwards as he tries to think of what he could possibly have to do. Keith quirks an eyebrow, sitting with his legs splayed and hands on the floor, looking much like a confused puppy.

 

Ugh.

 

“I have a thing!” Lance says lamely. Oh well. That will have to do for now, since it’s too late to take those dumb words back. “An important thing at the, uh...place...somewhere…”

 

Oh god, how he wants to die, how he wishes the reaper would smite him down where he stands at that very moment to save him from this gay hell.

 

“Oh…” says Keith, an unreadable expression sitting on his features - confusion, maybe, or worry. “Well alright then, see you.”

 

Cocking a finger gun towards Keith, Lance spins around and sprints away as fast as his legs will carry him.

 

“Duty calls, my man!”

 

As he races through the halls, Lance thinks about dimples, thinks about wrapping his mouth around other things Keith could potentially offer him in the future.

 

This is the end, having to defend the universe pales in comparison to this homoerotic death he has been sentenced to.

 

He can escape enemies attacking them, but how can he escape Keith?

 

There’s no way out.  



	2. Totally Heterosexual Dreams About Dongs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plot thickens. As do other things.

Later in the night, after a long, tiring day of avoiding Keith’s eye at every turn—of scrambling behind corners and volunteering to do far more chores than he’d regularly feel okay performing even if Coran were to ask, if only to put some distance between himself and the sneaky bastard who still has yet to stop crawling into his thoughts.

Even then, as he and Coran had been taking apart the food goop machine and cleaning all of the parts, he couldn’t help but notice the way that the light played against the blackness of the hose. It had reminded him of something that he couldn’t quite put his finger on, until he’d found himself contemplating the harsh lighting against Keith’s dark hair. The way that it highlighted the subtle brown strands against deeper black, how despite the style being so garishly  _ unstylish _ , so terrible and ugly, he couldn’t deny that it looked amazing framing Keith’s handsome face.

So he’d stood abruptly, told Coran that he needed to do something in his room in a voice far too grating in squeaky to be his own, and he’d barreled through the door before Coran could even force a retort from his lips.

The hours had ticked by, slowly but surely. There’s no way to decipher between night and day as they’re soaring through the endless void of space, but he decides that it must be late enough. He can go to bed and maybe sneak in early for breakfast tomorrow. He can keep up this charade of being far too busy to face Keith until he gets a handle on these weird thoughts.

It will be fine, he tells himself. These dreams will gradually uncoil inside of his brain. He’ll train himself to stop staring at the way that Keith’s hair glistens as he stumbles from the training room. He’ll convince himself that Keith’s eyes are normal eyes and definitely not breathtakingly beautiful, definitely nothing that he could get lost in for hours, and that his ass is only an ass and nothing spectacular—definitely nothing in comparison to the backsides of so many alien babes who they’ve met on their journeys around the universe.

He slips into an uneasy sleep, counting the stars as they pass slowly through the window. The constellations that he never bothered to learn the names of, and so many others that the astronomy books at school could have never known to cover. He doesn’t have the heart to ponder what his teachers back home would think of the sights that are completely lost on him out here—how they’d feel knowing that someone like Lance has been given the opportunity to see worlds and experience wonders that he can never appreciate.

That he’s wasting his time during such an amazing experience stressing over strange dreams about his fellow paladin. 

Sometimes he wonders about them: the people back home. He contemplates how his sister might be doing in class, if she’s still getting teased, if she’s still friends with the same group of girls. He’ll wonder about his mom, if she’s still using the same brand of hair dye, if her smiles are still as warm as the beach sand as the sun reaches its mid-day peak. About whether or not his grandmother is still cooking the same dishes that he’s always loved, if his dad still enjoys his job. If his younger cousins have learned all of their letters and numbers and if life is moving smoothly despite the ghost of his absence looming over them every passing day. He wonders if they think that he still might be out there somewhere, the way that Pidge worries for her father and brother. If his mother might say a prayer each time she passes his school photos hanging in the hall. If they might have asked the church to gather and pray for his safe return.

He worries about them so often that the bubbling stress feels commonplace in the pit of his belly anymore. But tonight, he feels empty without the familiar buzzing of that nervousness roving over his skin. He can’t even manage to concentrate on his homesickness with all of these thoughts of Keith’s stupid, smug smile rolling through his thoughts. 

He hates to think that his misery is taking backseat to something so trivial. He hates to even consider that Keith has become so important in his life that he’s shoved his way to the forefront of his thoughts.

With an indignant grumble, he rolls over and closes his eyes. The stars remind him of the twinkle in Keith’s eyes as he pulls off his helmet after a mission. The white dots against a dark backdrop reminiscent of Keith’s sparkling teeth bared during rare smiles.

He tells himself that everything will feel better in the morning. He’ll figure this out with time. 

Maybe it’s something that he ate. Maybe Coran has been accidentally poisoning them all this time. He’ll have to check to see if there’s an expiration date on any of the food in the kitchen when he wakes up. 

But for now, he tries to clear his thoughts. He slips deeper and deeper into the fuzzy blackness of slumber. 

And he tries to convince himself that he’s not imagining Keith’s fingers ghosting over his lips as everything finally fades away.

 

* * *

 

In his dream, Nyma is pacing around him in a wide, dimly-lit room. He drums his fingers against the armrests of the swivel chair in which he sits, tilting his head back and mapping out the shadowed lines of the ceiling. She reaches out a long, yellow arm, pressing it on top of his as she leans forward and grins, teeth stark white in the darkness. 

Her eyes shine with something predatory, breath hot against his cheeks. Her fingers travel upward to tangle in his hair, voice a lull that echoes in the deep corners of the room. 

_“Lance,”_ she whispers, shadowing her fingers over the shell of his ear as her lips draw closer and closer to his cheek, _“I was wrong about you.”_

He isn’t sure how he got here, or why Nyma is here at all. He wonders where his lion went, where Shiro and the others might be hiding and if Rolo has tucked himself away somewhere in the blackness.

She’s still talking, slow and quiet, and he strains his ears to hear her. 

_“I tricked you,”_ she tells him, _“but I didn’t realize what I was missing out on.”_

He decides that he likes where this is going, regardless of how he got here, or what sort of ruse this might be. The thought alone of those handcuffs binding him to that tree has his dick standing at attention, straining against the material of the spacesuit that he has no idea why he’s wearing right now. 

_ “I didn’t realize back then how sexy you are, Lance. I didn’t know how amazing of a lover you could be. How impressive you are where it really counts.” _

She flicks her gaze between his legs, and he can’t find the will to cross them. The embarrassment refuses to come, smothered by the drunkenness of his arousal and the need to get this moving before things decide to go south again.

Alien girls, he thinks, a cocky smile tugging at his lips, dangerous, but oh so worth the risk.

Her hand tugs from his hair, trailing down his neck to his shoulder before dropping to his knee. Her other hand rests against the opposite knee, squeezing just firmly enough that he’s forced to notice how close her fingers are creeping toward the tightness between his thighs.

Gradually, she drops down to a crouch, a smile so sweet adorning her lips that he almost forgets how she tricked him so many months ago. How she’d left him for dead in the middle of nowhere with no way to ever escape. 

_“Lance,”_ she hums, cheek resting against his leg as her fingers dance closer and closer to the erection tenting his suit—but suddenly it isn’t a suit. He’s wearing his jeans and shirt, but he can’t bring himself to question it, _“Do you know what I want to do to you?”_

Her voice dips lower at that, low enough that it distorts into something that sounds completely unlike her. The inflection is all wrong. The high tittering of her voice slidingdown into her throat, her teeth wrapping around syllables in a way that is not familiar with her.

He doesn’t question it. He doesn’t want to ruin the moment. It might be some strange alien thing, after all. It doesn’t matter that her words suddenly sound like they’re being spoken by someone else, someone who he’s struggling not to think about even now. All that matters is that she’s reaching forward with fingers far smaller than he thinks they usually are and pulling down his zipper. 

She reaches into his pants, tugging him free. She turns purple eyes up at him with thick brows that he doesn’t remember her ever having before.

_“Do you know how long I’ve wanted you, Lance?”_ she questions, skin fading from yellow to a lively, yet translucent pale, _“Do you know how many times I’ve dreamed about touching you?”_

His erection jerks, eager for her smooth palms. The words that he might speak are lodged deep down in his throat, pulse pounding in his ears as he watches her scoot forward and poke out a curious tongue.

One lap at the tip. She giggles, but it sounds more like someone else’s insufferable laugh. Thick tentacles of hair shorten, darken. The lips wrapping around him are fuller and pink. The tongue dragging itself from base to tip is hot and wet all the same. 

His trembling fingers reach forward and comb through thick, dark hair. Nyma takes him all the way into the back of her throat, groaning in that strange, familiar voice. The vibrations of it wrack through him like the skittering of electricity, numbing his toes all the way up to his knees as his fingers grip her tighter.

His eyes rove the ceiling, the dark caverns of the room. He begins to make out the control boards and the many levers, the purring that’s so regular to his routine at this point that most times, he barely notices it at all. 

He realizes that he’s sitting in his seat inside of the Blue Lion, staring out the window into the vast night sky. Nyma bobs her head, cradling his balls in her palm, the fingers of her free hand digging into his thigh so tightly that it almost hurts.

She pulls back, breathing hard, moaning quietly. At the loss of sensation, he draws his gaze downward, jerking as her hand begins to work him quicker than her mouth probably can. 

But the eyes that meet his are not Nyma’s. The lazy smile and the dark flush against porcelain cheeks, they’re not alien. They’re not feminine. They’re not anyone’s who he could accept sitting between his thighs without his pulse spiking and his spine straightening so quickly that his back cracks.

Keith tips his head to the side. His smile never falters. His eyes glimmer with something so needy, so hungry that Lance can feel his orgasm building swiftly in his abdomen. 

_“What’s wrong, Lance?"_ he asks, need tainting his voice, rumbling with each word that tumbles from his lips, _“Don’t you understand… how much I want to touch you?”_

With a jolt, Lance finds himself in his bedroom in the dark. His chest heaves, brow dotted with sweat as he wraps his arms around himself and lets out a quiet curse.

There’s a bang against the wall, the muffled yell of Pidge from the other room, telling him to stop yelling and go to bed.

Between his legs, he finds a sticky, damp mess. He isn’t sure how he’s going to manage to sneak his pajamas to the laundry chute without anyone noticing, but right now, there are more important thoughts occupying his mind.

Like Keith staring up at him and saying all of those horrible things.

How intense his orgasm was despite the fact that he was dreaming about  _ Keith saying such horrible things _ . 

He doesn’t even know what he apparently yelled, and the thought alone sends tremors of terror rushing over his skin.

With a shuddering breath, he drags a hand through his sweaty hair. He chances another look out the window, watching unseeingly as the stars pass, as the ship moves forward into the galaxy. The universe is far too vast to be worrying so much about this. There are so many more important things to get hung up on than cumming in his pants over some asshole like Keith. 

And yet, he can’t stop the anger from boiling within him, simmering so hotly that it takes everything he has not to throw himself out of bed and storm into Keith’s room to demand an apology.

He thinks about the family dog. How his dad would punish it for pissing on the floor by rubbing its nose in it. He hates himself for even considering doing the same to Keith.

Even more, he despises the arousal that has his dick standing at attention _again_ at the mere thought of Keith’s stupid, smug face anywhere near his crotch.

He wriggles out of his pants and his underwear, tossing them haphazardly into the middle of the room. Wrapping his blanket around himself in a tight cocoon, he tells himself that he’ll make Keith pay for this tomorrow.

He’ll make him eat all of the expired food from the kitchen. He’ll start up the maze simulator while Keith is fighting in the training room. He’ll think of something good, and Keith will pay for all of this lost sleep. Maybe he won’t understand why he’s being punished, but he’s Keith. He’ll deserve it for something, Lance is sure. 

Whatever the revenge may be, it will be well-deserved. And maybe then, Lance will be able to stop having these horrible nightmares and finally get some sleep.   
  
  


* * *

 

Keith shuffles awkwardly in his seat, picking through his food more than he’s eating it as he tries not to notice the empty spot near the middle of the table where Lance should be.

No one else has so much as mentioned it, and for awhile, he wonders if they’re all in on some elaborate prank that they’ve organized just to get under his skin. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, really, since he can’t imagine Allura being so vindictive or Shiro being so petty, but after Lance’s episode yesterday and the ensuing awkwardness that’s only worsened as the hours pass, he really isn’t sure if he’d be surprised.

Pidge is telling Coran about some new additions that she’s made to the ship, as he sputters incoherently as though she hasn’t done this a billion times by now. Hunk is eating wordlessly, far too engrossed in the strange slime that he’s barely able to shovel into his spoon to say much of anything. His little hums sound more pained than pleasurable, but Keith ignores him. Allura is telling Shiro about the new direction that the ship is headed, the quiet lilts in her voice so soothing that it might put him to sleep, if only he weren’t so on edge.

He didn’t sleep well last night. He’d found himself oddly overwhelmed by how strange Lance was acting yesterday, how he’d pulled himself away when Keith touched him as though he’d been burned. He’d thought about the color painting Lance’s cheeks, the way that he’d stumbled over his words as he’d struggled to find an excuse to get away. 

Keith hadn’t even started training yet, so he didn’t smell. He’d brushed his teeth before heading toward the training room, he’d remembered to apply deodorant. It couldn’t have been anything about his body, surely, so he’d decided that Lance must have had a problem with him personally. But he thought that they were past all of that—the bickering, the petty arguments. He’d convinced himself that he and Lance had become more friends than rivals, but maybe he was wrong.

Maybe Lance really doesn’t like him as much as he’d hoped—er,  _ assumed _ .

He forces out a long breath, drawing designs in his food that fill in as quickly as his spoon slices through. He’s already itching to hit the training deck, despite the numerous yawns working their way through him and the heaviness dragging down his eyelids.

He’d finally managed to slip into an uncomfortable sleep. He’d dreamed of the usual things, completely familiar with the sorts of stories that his brain tends to conjure up, when something had rattled him from his slumber.

A loud noise, like a yowling, angry cat. His sleep-muddled brain had struggled to piece together the words that were vibrating through the walls. 

_ “Get out of my dreams!” _ he’d barely deciphered, working a hand through messy hair, too exhausted to even be annoyed,  _ “You slimy mullet-headed bastard! Get the quiznak out of my quiznaking dreams!” _

It’s troubling, to say the least. He can’t help but wonder what sort of dreams he’d been invading. He imagines Lance dreaming of finally scoring a date with some alien girl. Maybe winning some sort of award at the Garrison for being the “Most Awesome Pilot Ever” or something equally as inane. He’s sure that he must have swooped in and stolen Lance’s glory, if only because that’s so typical of someone as ridiculously single-minded as Lance.

It might be funny, he thinks, if Lance weren’t acting so weird. He might have even forced himself out of bed just so he could go in there and tease him.

As it was, he’d sat still for a long time, watching shadows crawl along the ceiling, counting each of his breaths as he’d listened intently for any other calls from Lance’s room. The silence had been deafening, a heavy, smothering thing that had weighed against his rib bones and constricted the air in his lungs.

And finally, after so much time had passed, he’d heard Allura’s footsteps padding down the hall past his door. He’d decided that going back to bed would only mess up his sleep schedule, and so he’d resigned himself to a day of exhaustion and grumpiness. 

He’d dragged himself out of bed, gotten dressed, brushed his teeth (because how could he even consider eating when his stomach had been doing flips that would put an Olympic gymnast to shame?), and made his way down to the dining room. 

He wonders how long he can pretend to eat before Shiro starts lecturing him. He’d been surprised when they’d first started this mission so much time ago, not by the aliens, not by the endless battle against an evil overlord intent on destroying the universe, but by the mere fact that anyone deemed it necessary to remind him to take care of himself.

He thinks of Shiro’s face back then, gawking at him. 

_ “You only eat one meal a day?” _ he’d questioned, as though Keith himself were some strange alien lifeform with customs far too bizarre to comprehend.

_ “Uh, yeah,” _ he’d drawn out, feeling so much smaller and so much more helpless than he had in a long, long time,  _ “They only served breakfast and dinner at the Garrison, but the dining room was so noisy, so—” _

Shiro had sighed as though Keith’s reasoning had been far too much to handle. He’d pressed his fingers between his brows, silent for a moment that felt like a thousand lifetimes before saying, finally,  _ “It’s three meals a day, Keith. I’m not going to have anyone passing out on this ship because they aren’t getting enough nutrients.” _

Maybe he would have replied with something snotty. A,  _ “Who made you my boss? Who made you my father?”  _

But as it was, the entire concept of anyone worrying about his health so much had been so out of place, so foreign, that he’d found himself incapable of formulating any response at all. 

He definitely doesn’t want to repeat that exchange. It’s true that he’s found it easier to train for long periods of time since Shiro forced him to start eating more. He isn’t sure if it has anything to do with actually eating, or if Coran’s meals are truly as nutritious as he always pretends that they are. Although it’s also true that he finds himself throwing out more food than he actually manages to finish during meals, but Shiro tells him that everything takes time, so maybe he’ll get there eventually. Maybe there will come a time when he can take care of himself as effortlessly as Lance or Hunk. 

He wonders if Shiro harasses Pidge about not sleeping the same way that he harasses him about not eating enough. He wonders if Shiro makes his rounds around the ship, reminding everyone to take care of themselves with that same exasperated frown that he’d forced Keith to endure.

He wonders if Shiro would help him get to the bottom of this Lance situation if he understood that it’s the sole reason for his loss of appetite. 

It sounds like a good enough idea, but Lance might clam up if he knows that he involved someone else. Whatever his problem might be, it seems as though he’s determined to keep it to himself. It’s annoying, really, that Keith can find himself so tangled in an issue and not even be given the courtesy of knowing why. Lance won’t tell him why he freaked out yesterday. He won’t explain why he refuses to stay in his company for more than a moment or two. 

Keith doesn’t want to admit that it stings a little bit, that it sits uncomfortably in the pit of his belly, so heavy and so bubbly that even the thought of raising his spoon to his lips makes bile rise in his throat.

“Keith,” Shiro says, and Keith huffs. He’s been caught. It’s all over.

“Do you know where Lance is? Allura says that he wasn’t in his room this morning.”

It takes a moment for his brain to catch up. He stares at his plate for a little too long, blinking in confusion as he wonders why anyone would be asking him about Lance’s whereabouts.

“Uh, why would I know that?” he asks finally, a crack in his voice that he hopes that everyone is too engrossed in their individual conversations to pick up on.

Shiro and Allura exchange a look. He doesn’t like this at all. They’re looking at each other as though they know something that he doesn’t, and that only worsens his suspicions that everyone is up to something behind his back. 

“What?” he spits, far more aggressively than he intends to, “Do you think I’m lying?! Do you think I’m hiding him in my room or something?!”

Hunk chokes on his food, barking a cough as Pidge snickers and pats him on the back. Coran’s cheeks color as Allura’s lips tug in a smile, and Shiro’s eyes flash with something that he doesn’t recognize and he isn’t sure if he would even want to. 

“No one said that,” Shiro tells him, careful and level-headed in a way that only pisses him off more, “You were the last person to talk to him yesterday, so we thought that maybe you’d know something.”

Keith is standing before he even registers what’s going on. His bowl clatters against the table, spilling slime over the edges as he slams his hands down on the surface with a resounding bang.

All eyes turn to him, everyone watching curiously as he turns an angry stare in Shiro’s direction. He tries not to be the sort of person who takes his stress out on other people. He tries to be reasonable even in the tightest of situations. Lance is so blinded by his own stupid jealously that he doesn’t realize how much better he has at keeping a cool head than Keith is. Maybe they wouldn’t be having these problems if he knew this. Maybe he’d get over whatever is causing him to act so annoying.

“I’m sick of this!” Keith finds himself yelling before he can stop it, before he can remind himself that Shiro doesn’t deserve this, that he has stress of his own that he isn’t taking out on anyone, “No one tells me anything around here, then you just expect me to answer all of your questions! I have no idea where he is! He freaked out yesterday in the training room when I sat by him and I hadn’t heard from him until he was yelling about me in his sleep last night!”

Pidge snorts, covering her mouth quickly as Hunk elbows her in the ribs. He realizes only at this point how suggestive all of this sounds. His cheeks feel overwhelmingly hot. His fists tremble against the table.

“Sorry,” he all but growls, tearing himself away from the table and stalking toward the door. 

No one tries to stop him. No one calls his name.

They let him go peacefully, and never in his life has he been so thankful for silence.

 

* * *

 

Lance flips along through the galaxy map, fingers touching nothing but air as he moves his way through the holographic constellations in search of Earth. Coran had been kind enough to teach him how to use this technology, surely taking pity on him after so many nights of homesickness, or maybe even just growing tired of being forced to pull it up every time that they make their way to a new part of the universe, if only so Lance can figure out how far he is from home.

It’s calming, seeing everything in existence set to such a small scale. Even as the page stretches far beyond the reach of the ship walls, as the stars at the far sides fade away each time that he scrolls further, it feels as though maybe the universe isn’t so big if someone managed to map all of it out like this.

It takes fifteen minutes to find the Milky Way Galaxy. In all of his years at school, he’d never managed to remember where to find Germany or France on a world map, but now he can pinpoint exactly where the planet falls among the endless expanse of stars.

He zooms in as closely as he can, watching the loop of Earth’s rotation as he contemplates the empty feeling in the pit of his gut. It’s not a new emotion that boils within him—of course not. He’s used to feeling small in the face of the many planets inhabiting the universe. He’s felt this loneliness, this worry, this guilt for abandoning everyone who he’s ever loved back home without a single word—but it’s muted. It’s shadowed by something else. 

This new feeling, this even more overwhelming emotion, this anger playing hot in his veins when he even thinks about how worked up he’s getting over something so trivial. 

He’s risked his life countless times in the name of what is right. He’s teamed up with a group of people just as inexperienced and unprepared as he is, crumbling under the weight of what must be done, bowing under the wants and the needs of so many different people who will never even know that they exist. 

He’s faced death to save a friend. He shot off some alien bastard’s arm half conscious. He’s flirted with so many girls who don’t look even remotely human, and still, after everything that he’s been through, the very first thing to really put a stumble in his stride is—

_ It’s— _

With a curse, he closes the map. A hologram doesn’t have the ability to be slammed or handled roughly, but he tries his hardest to wave his hands as aggressively as possible. 

He’s considering banging an angry fist against the control board when a voice calls out from the doorway. He doesn’t turn around, but he recognizes Shiro anyway. The concerned undertone of his words causes a flush to work its way along Lance’s cheeks. He knows that everyone must think that he’s gone crazy. Even if they’d humored him, he’s not stupid enough to believe that anyone actually thinks that Keith’s breathing alone was the reason for his freak-out.

“Here you are,” Shiro greets, and Lance can hear him making his way slowly into the room, “Everyone’s been worried about you.”

He considers venting for only a moment—letting loose all of the problems gradually building up inside of him if only so he won’t feel as though he’s constantly one step away from exploding. Shiro wouldn’t mind, he knows, but he also knows that Shiro has his own issues to deal with, and surely anything that he’s bottling up isn’t anywhere near as pathetic as missing his family or having strange dreams about alien babes morphing into his cocky rival mid-blowjob.

With a shrug, he wills himself to appear as casual as possible. He doesn’t know if Shiro saw his little tantrum or not, but he also understands that if he doesn’t mention it, Shiro won’t have the heart to call him out. 

“Yep, just hanging out here with the tech,” he sighs, stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets and turning to send Shiro a lopsided, purposefully lazy smile, “You know how much I like playing with knobs.”

He’s reaching out to fiddle with one of the many levers, as a show of just how much Shiro should know that he apparently adores messing around in the control room, when he realizes how ridiculous the words leaving his mouth must have sounded. 

Shiro notices too, if the uncomfortable smile tugging at his lips is any indication. 

“T-the levers, you know, uh, they… they have knobs on them. Not like—”

“Yeah, Lance, I know.”

It’s too early in the morning for this homosexual dilemma, he decides. He didn’t sleep well enough to defend his sexuality as well as he needs to after he’d probably woken up the entire ship screaming about Keith last night. 

“Sooooo,” he draws out the _ ‘o’ _ longer than he needs to, filling the silence as he decides against grabbing the lever and shoves his hand back into his pocket, “Is something going on? Like a mission or something? Why was everyone flipping out about me not coming to breakfast?”

Shiro clears his throat, tapping his human fingers against the artificial knuckles of the opposite hand. He flicks his gaze about the room for a moment or two, as though he’s having a hard time deciding what he wants to say.

“Well, ah,” a short pause, a slight smear of pinkness against Shiro’s cheeks, and Lance regrets even asking anything in the first place, “Keith said that you were yelling about him last night. He said you woke him up.”

What a nightmare.

He almost pinches himself. This moment is entirely too horrifying to possibly be real. 

“I don’t recall,” he replies, but neither of them believe him. 

Shiro doesn’t mention it, but he can tell just by the way that his lips purse and his brows furrow. As though he’s talking to a particularly unruly child.

“I know that things are a little intense right now,” he says, careful, quiet, so reassuring that Lance is reminded of his own parents when they’d spoken to him about serious issues back home, “It’s easy to fall into a pattern of taking out your stress on other people, and I understand, I do. Things aren’t easy between you and Keith. I know that he still manages to get on your nerves without even trying sometimes.”

It’s the same speech that he’s heard a thousand times before. The _“Why Can’t You Two Just Get Along For the Sake of Voltron Blah Blah Blah”_ shtick that he’s heard so many times that he could probably recite it in his sleep. He’s beginning to tune the whole thing out when Shiro switches gears. 

And he decides, in the mere tick in which Shiro stops lecturing him and begins prying just a little too much, that he really prefers the boring friendship speeches over whatever the Hell this is. 

“It’s normal to have fantasies, you know that, right? You’re young, your body is changing, and you’re cooped up in this ship all the time with the same group of people. There’s nothing wrong with developing feelings for our teammates, but you have to understand that you can’t allow those feelings to interfere with forming Voltr—”

“W-wait, what—Sh-Shiro—” he can barely formulate a response, but even his humiliating sputtering is better than listening to another word of what Shiro is trying to say, “ _Feelings_? Shiro, are you—a-are you trying to… you’re, you’re trying to say that I—that I—”

“There’s nothing wrong with having dreams about Keith,” Shiro tells him, as though the implication wasn’t torture enough, and he feels as though he really needs to punish Lance for whatever he must have done in a past life to deserve this eternal Hell, “You had a pretty passionate rivalry when you guys first met. It makes sense that your hormonal brain—”

Lance steps back, knees locking as his hands search out a stable surface to hold himself up against. He lets out a horrified sort of squeak, a noise that he’ll never own up to making as long as he lives. A noise that he hopes is lost when he spends the next fifty years in therapy attempting to repress every trace of this conversation within his memory. 

“My hormonal—my-my  _ what _ ?!”

At this, Shiro finally stops talking. He puts his hands in front of him, palms bared to the air in a small show of surrender. He’s smiling apologetically, but Lance has a feeling that he doesn’t feel sorry about any of this at all. He probably thinks that he’s helping somehow, and while the idea of that does manage to make him feel a little guilty, he can’t stop himself from expressing just how wrong Shiro is about absolutely everything that he just said. 

“L-look, okay?!” he yelps, ego already so wounded that he doesn’t even care about the girlish shrill of his voice anymore, “I-I’m not gay for Keith! He’s a douche, I tolerate him—I-I can barely stand the guy! If anyone deserves a nice punch in his stupid cocky mug, it’s him! It’s not my fault that he can’t even leave me alone in my dreams, okay?! H-he’s doing it on purpose, I know it! It’s not me, I’m not gay for Keith, so just—j-just leave me alone about this and just—i-if you want to talk to anyone about being a weird homo, go ask him why he’s trying to suck my dick all the time, okay?!”

His mother used to tell him that his biggest vice was oversharing. He used to brush her off, laughing at how little she knew about the world, but now he isn’t so sure. 

Shiro is making as face as though Lance is someone to be pitied. He’s shocked for a few torturous heartbeats, before he finally lets out a long sigh and runs a hand through his hair. 

“Okay, sure,” he breathes, stepping back as though Lance needs space to cool off, “I get it. You’re… not _"gay for Keith"_. Okay.”

It sounds like a victory, but Lance feels anything but triumphant. He feels as though he might have said a little too much, allowed Shiro to peek in on a few choice thoughts that he probably should have kept to himself if he were worried about anyone thinking that he leans a different way. 

Which, he doesn’t, of course. But he doesn’t need Shiro telling everyone that he’s had some big epiphany in the control room. 

What a mess. 

What an absolute train wreck of a day.

He finds that his legs are finally willing to work again, and he stumbles wordlessly from the room. Shiro doesn’t turn to watch him go, and Lance doesn’t crane his neck to see where he’s looking either.

The stars pass through the windows, flecks of whiteness barely visible at the speed at which they’re traveling. Just bright streaks against blackness. Just Keith’s teeth bared in a cocky smile, a charming laugh, a sultry grin peeking up at him between his thighs. 

He thinks that he might be getting sick. 

He hasn’t even eaten anything yet today, but he already feels as though he’s going to vomit. 

He adds today to the growing list of reasons why Keith deserves the sweetest of revenge. Whatever he’s going to come up with, it needs to be good.

One of these days, Keith is going to pay.

And only then will Lance allow himself to forget that horrible look on Shiro’s face as he’d told him,  _ “It’s normal to have fantasies, you know that, right?” _

He wonders if it’s too early to go back to bed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there! I'm flyingisland! You can call me Moth as well, if you do so please. I'm fairly new to this fandom, actually, and this is the first fic that I've published for this fandom on ao3! So it's really nice to meet all of you. I hope that my chapter is okay! 
> 
> This story is really ridiculous, but it's a lot of fun to write! Thanks for reading, and I hope you guys enjoy it!


	3. Pidge, Interrupted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If someone jerks off in the middle of the night and no is around to see it, do they still come?

Pidge doesn’t care that time is irrelevant here - her precious sleep is being interrupted for the third day in a row, and there’s only so much more she can take of this. Rubbing her eyes as she hears the familiar string of curse words coming from Lance’s bedroom, she blindly tosses the nearest object next to her as hard as she can at the wall, which just so happens to be the ticker counter that Coran let her borrow to tinker around with. The poor thing explodes into several pieces from the force alone, probably only aiding in waking up the rest of the crew, but fuck if she cares. 

 

Having been quietly hovering in the air in sleep mode, Rover blinks on in alarm as the pieces fly wildly around them, coming to full alert at the noise. They twitter a series of different colored lights as if thinking the same thought as her:  _ “Why can’t Lance go be gay for Keith somewhere else and let us rest in peace.” _

 

Irritated, she cups a hand around her mouth, rapping a fist sharply against the wall with her other for added emphasis. “Lance, shut the fuck up! Some of us are actually trying to sleep here!” 

 

She  _ could _ tag on a tease, maybe something about how he should “leave his dreams for lover boy as a daytime activity”, but she’s got more tact than that. As much as she doesn’t like the situation, she isn’t cruel enough to possibly out him to other more  _ oblivious people _ , she thinks as she narrows her eyes towards the wall behind her, in the direction where she knows Keith’s room lies not that far away.

 

Her annoyed yell is met only with silence, though it’s not surprising as she imagines Lance recoiling in embarrassment into a pathetic, hormonal ball onto his bed.

 

Honestly, Lance is going to end up going about this all wrong eventually. It’s only a matter of time before he starts doing worse things, like moaning Keith’s name or shouting explicit details literally no one (excepting maybe Keith) would want to hear. She shudders at the thought of it all - they’re practically like her  _ brothers _ , she shouldn’t have to deal with this shit.

 

Thankfully, it’s at least quiet again. She huffs as she falls back against the pillows angrily, curtly commanding Rover to power down once more. Rover blinks a light blue a few times, like they’re asking just to be sure, and she nods, reiterating the command. “It’s fine, boy, go back to recharge mode.”

 

She really, really doesn’t have the patience or the time for this. Her mother used to tell her that that was one of her weaker points, not being more patient. She’d frown and reprimand her, saying how it wasn’t ‘ladylike’ behavior to act impulsively, and Pidge had always scoffed at her mother assuming she was ladylike  _ anything _ . Whatever that even meant, she didn’t have time for her mother’s antiquated societal gender norms and constructions. 

 

Personally, she thinks it’s one of her best assets to help fuel her to keep going. A motivation in the form of never waiting around to find answers when she can just dive head first and collect what she needs since she has all the available tools for it.

_ “Never wait around for someone to rescue you first _ ,” her father would say gently as they’d study from engineering and physics books together while he’d explain the more difficult mathematical theorems,  _ “You’ll miss out on the opportunity to learn if you let others do the work for you.” _

 

She’d laugh and say something like _ “But dad, you’re helping me right now,”  _ to which he’d usually respond with _ “Well, kiddo, you have to start somewhere”  _ and smile at her gently _.  _ With that little nudge in the right direction, she’d finish most of the work on her own. 

 

Blessed with good genes, maybe, but she’s worked hard to teach herself complex technological things all her life with the help of the encouragement from her father. Since the disappearance of her father and Matt, she’s wanted answers, and the lengths she’s been willing to go to clearly have no limit. 

 

Coming back to the case in point - she needs to always be ready and well-rested for when the time possibly comes that they find out something about her father and brother - or hopefully, for  _ when _ they actually find them. She cannot be losing sleep over this along with Lance if she needs to be able to kick ass at a moment’s notice, or hack into a system while a timer counts down to some terribly pressing situation only she has the skills to pull them out of.

 

Lance either needs to finally address this, or she’s going to push this along for them, whether the two are willing to outwardly admit that they want it or not. 

 

Ever since they first boarded the ship together, she’s noticed the tension only rising in volume. At the Garrison, it was somehow easier to deal with because she never had to live in such close quarters with Lance, so his obvious “rivalry” (or more accurately as she likes to call it, his ‘intense crush on Keith that he covers up with an unconvincing  _ claim _ about rivalry’) was not an issue and could be avoided, especially since she never met the guy until that night that they left. She’d even forgotten his name until then, having been blocking it out for a while whenever Lance felt the need to rant to her and Hunk about some mullet headed fighter pilot who was ‘always stealing his glory’. 

 

Hunk would nod his head understandingly, agreeing in supportive ‘yeah’’s and ‘uh-huh’’s and ‘you’re right, Lance, he was a total chode for acting like he’s better than you when you’re obviously an amazing pilot’’s. Hunk was too kind, never wanting to cause any friction enough to bother speaking the words that  _ should _ have been said ages ago, like perhaps pointing out Lance’s fixation on this person who wasn’t even around them to do anything to deserve being shittalked about literal  _ months _ after having left.

 

She’d wondered about it briefly, considered it a little suspicious maybe, but her focus on finding out what happened to her family took precedence, of course. As time passed, she had completely erased every detail about the boy at the center of Lance’s oddly specific obsession from her mind.

 

Inevitably, all those unaddressed things rose to the surface once the two reunited. From the moment Lance spotted Keith, narrowed his eyes, and uttered the words,  _ “I’d recognize that mullet anywhere _ ” with as much passion and renewed venom as if he’d only seen him the day before, she knew she was in for the long haul.

 

She just never thought it would land her here, fighting to try and find sleep anywhere and any way she could during the day. She already hadn’t rested much as it was, until Shiro had confronted her about her micronaps out in the halls a few weeks into being defenders of the universe. The only reason she took to heeding his warnings was his firm reminder that her family would want her to be as healthy and as happy as possible regardless of what happened to them -- well, no, she thinks as she curls up on her side to get more comfortable, reflecting back on the memory. It hadn’t been quite  _ that _ that had ultimately gotten her to cooperate.

 

She’d ignored Shiro’s warnings anyway, she wasn’t going to give in to his psycho mumbo-jumbo lectures about the importance of taking care of yourself. She could take care of herself just  _ fine,  _ who was he to judge _? _ ! When his first few attempts of saying things along the same lines hadn’t exactly worked, he’d shaken her awake one day and gotten to her with what he knew would hit hardest instead.

 

As she sat balled up in an exhausted heap with her computer in her lap, he’d crouched down to her level, looked her unfalteringly in her tired eyes, and said simply, _ “Pidge, if you’re sleep-deprived, you’re no help to anyone, and especially won’t be to them when the time comes.  _ **_We_ ** _ need you,  _ **_the universe_ ** _ needs you,  _ **_your family_ ** _ needs you. So please, go to your room and get some proper rest.  _ **_Now_ ** _.” _

 

Damn Shiro and his acute awareness of her weak spot for helping others. How in the world was she going to keep up her badass image with him around constantly ruining it by seeing the good in everyone?

 

With the tiniest, half-hearted glare, she’d gotten up then without any response. She didn’t need to turn around after stalking off to know Shiro was smiling in silent, paternal victory. She’d gone to her room and sat down in the bed she’d rarely touched since they’d first arrived, ranting and raving to Rover along the way as she changed into her night clothes. However, she’d found in that moment as her body and mind instantly shut down when she laid on the comforting mattress, that sleep was actually a pretty nice thing that she may have been missing more than she’d care to admit.

 

She won’t have this repressed homoerotic tension impeding on her goals. She doesn’t want to see Shiro’s guilt-inducing stare that only painfully reminds her more of the father she so desperately misses. 

 

Lance can just pull on his big boy pants and fucking deal with it. Keith, as she suspects, is probably already further along on coming to terms with things, so he isn’t as much of a problem.

 

She can do this, she’s a genius in every sense of the word on so many levels. How hard could it be? Some set up situations where they can’t escape their feelings there, a few carefully planned timing here, and then some meddling with things she probably shouldn’t to wrap it all nicely together. Right as she’s about to slip into sleep, she gets the perfect idea - an idea so simultaneously genius and devious, that there’s no way those two will be able to play this terrible gay chicken with each other anymore.

 

It’s a plan so satisfyingly brilliant, that unconsciousness easily washes back over her, taking any and all lingering anxiety and stress she’s had away.

 

She dreams about saving the relationships and subsequent sanity of everyone on board by getting Keith and Lance together. She dreams about finding her brother and father, somehow reuniting them with her mother as well. She dreams about defeating the galra empire and crushing that pussy, Zarkon. She dreams about Rover, about hacking and modifying things for fun instead of for missions, about living a quiet life set alone as a normal teenager again with no serious responsibilities, surrounded by the loving limelight of her new friends and family.

 

By the time she wakes up, she’s forgotten it all, left with only the faint feeling of melancholy that the morning often brings.

  
  


* * *

 

  
  


Keith always takes his showers in the middle of the night.

 

Or, at least, what is considered night time for them in this permanent inky void where the complexities of determining things by day and night are not so easily calculated by the rising and setting of suns and moons.

 

After sulking through his training for most of the evening, battling alone level after level of holographic robot, he makes his way to the communal shower room, hair plastered to his face and neck, clothes stuck tight to him like a second skin.

 

He’d stopped by his room only for a moment to gather his pajamas, pausing somewhat alert before he left. A faint shout, easily recognizable as Lance’s groggy voice, had echoed through the hall right as he’d approached the door. As it slid open automatically at Keith’s presence, unmistakably he could make out a few words and phrases he hadn’t been so sure what to make of.

 

A long drawn out “ _Keith_ ”, a hard to decipher string of curses in Spanish, “ _fucking mullet ass bitch_ ”, “ _not there you asshole_ ”, _“I’ll show him for getting under me like that”_ , and the mysterious last utterance of a word Keith isn’t so sure is real: “ _dongnuts_ ”. 

 

Although his nose had scrunched in distaste at being so blatantly disrespected even in Lance’s dreams, he felt his cheeks warming despite himself. Shuffling off fast, he hadn’t stuck around to investigate any further than that.

 

Starting the water and peeling off his clothes, his thoughts drift back to the ever pressing topic of what he must be doing in Lance’s dreams. He has to admit, he’s been far past curious since being woken up by or stumbling upon hearing Lance shout about him for the past couple of nights now. 

 

A small smile quirks up his lips as he thinks they may be about him beating Lance’s awful scores in the flight simulator, like he often did when he was still at the garrison. He hadn’t taken much notice of Lance then, since they weren’t really in the same classes because of their differing positions, but the simulator had always been a fun time.

 

_ “Listen, you greasy mullet jerk,” _ Lance had said one day after a particularly nasty failure in which he’d “killed” all of his crew by flying towards a narrow passageway with less than a gallon of fuel _ , _ resulting in not being able to avoid impacting horribly into it _.  _ He’d jabbed an accusatory finger into Keith’s chest, eyebrows drawn tight into a vicious glare.  _ “Quit acting like you’re so much better than me!” _

 

Keith remembers feeling confused, remembers the strange scent, like that of cinnamon and freshly cut grass, overwhelm his senses as Lance had drawn nearer. He didn’t even know who this cargo pilot’s name was, let alone why he’d attempted to stray off the simple clear-cut path the simulator had for those lugging cargo. The only thing he’d thought then was, what kind of idiot tries a fancy nose dive set for a challenging level even  _ he _ could barely pull off at the time, on a clunky ship filled to the brim with supplies that was in no way ever designed for that in the first place?

 

_ “Huh? You mean me?” _ Keith had pointed at himself, looking around to see if there was possibly someone else who this reckless boy might be talking to, regardless of the fact his chest was the one being prodded.

 

_ “Yeah, of course I mean you! Who else has a hairstyle that ridiculously bad?!”  _ Lance had sneered, shoving him back as he’d brushed past him to stomp away like a little kid. _ “Just stay out of my way and stop showing off, alright?!” _

 

Keith scoffs at the memory as he slips under the rewarding heat of the water, sighs quietly as it beats steadily upon his skin. No matter how sweaty or overheated he gets during training, he’ll always refuse to bathe in any temperature that dips lower than scalding. The water pressure, the temperature, is all at perfectly set ratios just for him, aligning with a predetermined setting that they could individually put at whatever they wanted. He hadn’t even needed to push any buttons or levers to start it up the second time around after that first night - the shower had automatically recognized him and whirred to life, probably programmed to remember the unique heat signature of his body or something fancy like that.

 

He tries not to think too much about how creepy the technology of the ship can be sometimes, knowing things about him so personally. As he runs sore fingers through his hair to disperse the water, he can’t help but consider it strange, thinking anyone or anything would take the time to commit his mundane habits to memory.

 

If there was one thing he didn’t miss about the desert, though, it was the lack of any luxury of running water. This piece of heaven more than made up for any homesickness he might be feeling for that beaten up little shack that held a special place in his heart.

 

A small pleased noise escapes him as tension releases slowly over the minutes, each of his muscles relaxing and unwinding while he watches the muck that’s built up on him over the day cathartically swirl away down the drain. Rubbing his hands together and lathering up shampoo into the damp strings of his hair, his thoughts become a jumble of past and present problems, of Lance cursing his name in anger late at night, of his squeaky voice cracking over hurried excuses.

 

From  _ greasy _ mullet to _ silky _ mullet. This is an evolution he just can’t wrap his head around. It still sounds bad, still sounds like an insult with the way Lance’s lips purse in distaste and tone rises mockingly as he says it - that surely hasn’t changed. 

 

But  _ silky _ . He really can’t stop thinking about it. He’s fairly certain, knowing the definition of that word, that that’s not exactly a bad thing.

 

He washes the suds out until his scalp hurts, mulls this development over as he drags a foamy, sticky sort of purple body wash across his chest with the slippery palms of his hands. As usual, it leaves a glistening blue trail over where he’s washed, showing what parts he’s already gone over.

 

Dipping his hands lower, he brushes towards his groin, hips twitching when he rolls his palm down the familiar trail over jutting bone and smooth, taut muscle. Sliding briefly through a tuft of pubic hair, his fingers glide along with the soap, working their way towards a purposeful path. There’s excitement growing in his mind just as it doubles low in the pit of his stomach. Breath catching in his throat, his fingers settle with wrapping around himself, slick and hot, immediately beginning to pump up and down in a careful rhythm. 

 

Training late isn’t the only reason he saves taking showers for this time.

 

Bearing heavily with his free arm against the tiles in front of him, he moans softly, dripping hair falling into his eyes as he bows his head, blurring his vision with trickling water and darkness. He moves up and down the length of his erection, working deft fingers up the sensitive underside and over the head, not thinking of anything in particular anymore.

 

But he imagines he smells cinnamon instead of the strong sweet scent that the body wash leaves behind, wonders if he’ll ever smell anything even remotely like freshly cut grass again.

 

Chest heaving, he tries to hurry up the process as a sort of calming sleepiness falls over him - the heat of the water, the pulsing in his veins timing up with the throbbing in his cock, the looseness easing into every overtired muscle on his body. He presses hard against a familiar area he knows will do the trick, creeping the hand he’d been using for purchase behind and between his legs, pushing upwards on the tender flesh below his balls.

 

“Ah, fuck...fuck…”

 

His back arches at the same time his head jerks up, increasing his pace over his cock until the aching pressure releases, hips snapping back and forth harshly as he spills over his palm. He’s shaking, trembling with the strength of orgasm, knowing if he fumbles the tiniest bit he could end up slipping and falling on his ass. 

 

Luckily, this is a well-practiced art of his by this point, and he’s never been one to be knocked easily off balance in any situation. He doesn’t stick around much after he catches his breath and turns off the water, wanting nothing more to be wrapped in the similar warmth of sheets when he feels the cold air of the large room hit him again. These two sources, he thinks - the shower and bed - are the closest he’ll probably ever get to replicating the warmth of a human body.

 

By the time he’s dressed and tucked quietly back in his room with his head hitting the pillow, it’s really not worth thinking about anymore until the routine rolls around for another night.

  
  
  


* * *

 

  
  
  


“This is a really bad idea. Have I told you that already? That this is a bad idea? Because it is.”

 

“Hunk,” Pidge grits out in exasperation, eyeing the mechanisms of the security panel in the control room. Fingers flying over the screen faster than Hunk can bat another anxious eye, she enters the mainframe and easily disengages the alarm. “Relax. And yes, you’ve said that about five times already. I get it, okay?”

 

“No, no, no, look,” Hunk puts one hand on his hip as he waggles the finger of his other, doing a startlingly similar impression of her mother, “I don’t think you do.” He sighs, moving his chastising hand so he can run nerve wracked fingers through his hair. 

 

She doesn’t know why Hunk is bothering to stick around. If he has a problem with what she’s doing, he could have left ages ago, if only so she could hack the rest of the interior controls to the training room in peace. After all, she had been here alone, and he’d just so happened to stumble in. It’s not like she asked him for help or anything.

 

Her eyes flit again to one of the many hundreds of surveillance screens for the various rooms of the ship, trying to ignore the guilt he’s attempting to lay on her and settling on the one displaying the area of the training room. 

 

An interesting scene is unraveling upon it, the unmistakable miniature figures of Keith and Lance are engaging in some sort of awkward dance around each other. It’s not sparring, but it’s definitely not anything that looks like a friendly looking conversation or impromptu ballet lessons either. Both of them are gesturing wildly. It’s hard to make out, but upon closer inspection, they appear to be...talking.

 

Well, arguing is probably more accurate, she thinks. Hard to tell, and she won’t know for sure what’s going on until she figures out how to turn the sound on and mute the rest of the screens. Sticking her tongue out to the side, a habit she finds helps her concentrate more, she narrows her eyes while scrolling through the code laid out on the panel, searching for the line that will get her properly into the system.

 

“Pidge,” Hunk continues, throwing pleading eyes her way that she turns away from to avoid, “Listen to me. Whatever is going on with the two of them is clearly not something we need to be meddling with anyway, right?”

 

“Wrong,” she singsongs, smirking as she spots the code and lays siege to the inner control panel. This isn’t going to take nearly as long as she thought it would. Cracking her knuckles, she turns to him as she waits for the new settings to pop up. “Hunk, come on. We have a duty to voltron, do we not?”

 

Hunk frowns and crosses his arms, obviously still skeptical. “Well, yeah, but this seems kinda pushy and I--”

 

“So you agree then, that the best thing would be is for all of us to get along like Allura said we should, isn’t it?”

 

Hunk scratches his head, looking conflicted. “Sure we should, yeah I agree with that, but I think we need to go about this a little more delicately--”

 

“Don’t be ridiculous. Think about it. Since when does doing anything delicately ever get through to Lance?”

 

Hunk looks towards the ceiling, cupping a hand under his chin as he considers it. Maybe he hasn’t realized yet that never speaking up about Lance’s obsession with Keith had obviously done some damage in the long run, so she imagines he’s probably thinking back to the biggest example of this - a time at the garrison where Hunk tiptoed around the fact that Lance had gotten a failing grade on a huge test the two of them had easily passed. 

 

He spent weeks changing forms and pulling Lance away at the last minute from teachers with various distractions because he felt bad about how much Lance had actually studied for it and still had come out on bottom. Despite Pidge’s warnings to stop taking it further, in the end, Hunk just couldn’t stand seeing Lance not being his usual, boastful self.

 

Eventually, it all came to a head when inevitably Commander Iverson had thrown it into Lance’s face in front of the entire unit right after they failed another simulation. Devastated, both at being duped, and for failing something he had been convinced for almost three weeks he’d succeeded on, it took at least three days to coax Lance from his room afterwards. 

 

He’d locked himself in, declared dramatically that he wasn’t leaving until somehow the Commander apologized for humiliating him in front of everyone, as well as announced how awesome he actually was. Of course that wasn’t going to happen, and it took multiple deliveries of his favorite foods and promises from them to sneak out and go to the town with him to pick up girls before he finally (although very sulkily) came out.

 

Hunk gives another defeated sounding sigh. “Yeah, okay. I guess you do have a point.” He inches forward, cocking his head as he tries to make out what she’s doing. “Still though. What exactly are you trying to achieve by hacking the technical mainframe? And how’s interfering going to help?”

 

“Watch and learn, Hunk. Watch and learn. I’m going to teach them the true meaning of how to work together.” She barely stifles back a conniving laugh. “I’m going to...make them realize they are playing for the same team, so to speak.”

 

Hunk shuffles closer to squint at the screen, her pun apparently completely lost on him. It lights up as the pixelated figure of her head flashes victoriously on it. A new access panel emerges, revealing the main controls.

 

With an excited whoop, she flicks on the switch to the sound. Crackling white noise spouts out  from the speakers, followed by familiar voices that are loud and sound more than a little on edge. She glances at Hunk before they both lean in curiously so they can hear better. Not surprisingly, they’re bickering.

 

“...can’t have all the damn sandwiches, so quit being a primadonna. It’s simple. I was  _ here _ first, so I get to  _ train _ first,” Lance’s belligerent voice filters through, rising hysterically higher. The wild gesturing makes more sense in context as he waves his arms from one side to the next, slicing through the air as he says it. It’s belittling in nature, like an adult would talk to a child who’s having trouble understanding something. “That’s how it goes, okay, that’s the law of the training room!”

 

“Oh, come on! There’s no such thing as the ‘law of the training room’,” Keith growls, throwing up his hands and taking an intimidating step forward. Lance’s eyes go comically wide at the proximity, jumping back like a startled cat in order to avoid Keith’s close advances. “What the fuck does that even mean, anyway? Coran and Allura never said there were any specific rules that needed to be followed in here or whatever. You just pulled that out of your ass!”

 

It’s hard to tell through the screen, but Pidge swears Lance’s face pales about three shades lighter.

 

“O-out of my w-what, I-I-I,” Lance stammers, doing more of that strange waltz as Keith continues moving forward. Whipping his head back to strain to look behind him, his hands flutter to cover his backside defensively. He clears his throat. “W-who said anything about my ass?! Er, I-I mean,  _ why _ are y-you talking about my ass?! There’s n-nothing being pulled out of it!”

 

Pidge smacks a hand against her forehead. This is painful to watch. Quickly, she scrolls to the general features, relaxing as she finds the controls for the temperature gauge. Hunk side-eyes her worriedly, but doesn’t say a word as she raises the level to about twenty degrees higher.

 

Keith stops in his tracks, a tiny, confused version of himself poised on the screen. “Really Lance? It’s a figure of speech, you idiot. I didn’t mean  _ literally _ pulling shit out of your ass, what the hell.” 

 

Pidge thinks Keith is looking like he’s regretting his choice of words as soon as they slip off his tongue - and if he isn’t, he at least  _ should _ be, because it’s a terrible image. Keith’s nose scrunches and a barely discernible flush blossoms along his cheeks. Tiny Lance continues to flounder more, and automatically she moves to tune them out, because there’s only so much more of this she can stand.

 

A few more jabs at the outer security features, a few dings sounding its completion. She wonders briefly why what she’s just pressed is even an option on here, but it’s the perfect catalyst to get things moving, so she’s not going to question it.

 

For the  coup de grâce , it’s Hunk’s turn to stammer nonsensically as she simply pulls out the re-assembled ticker from her bag (now a fully functional taser with probably a higher voltage than even her bayard) and shocks the panel, hoping that the boredom she feels is evidently etched into her face. The screen fizzles, flickering on and off at the contact, an electric surge flowing so strongly through it that she’s surprised it hasn’t knocked her off her feet. 

 

That ought to take care of it.

 

She twirls the ticker taser and repockets it like a gunslinger re-holstering their pistol, regretting that she forgot to take the opportunity to blow on its smoking end first for added effect. Beyond satisfied with her handiwork nonetheless, she laughs as a red box pops up and blinks erratically at them. She doesn’t need to understand Altean to know it’s the error message she was setting out to invoke.

 

The training room surveillance screen goes dark. It’s not because the camera isn’t working.

 

“Um,” Hunk drawls out, barely above a whisper. “How exactly is cutting the lights and raising the temperature going to help their teamwork again?”

 

“That’s not all. You forgot one very important detail.”

 

Pidge doesn’t bother answering his questions, instead slinging her bag over her shoulder and tugging urgently on his sleeve. They need to get out of there before Coran or anyone else notices their absence and figures out what she’s been up to. With the delay she installed, it won’t be for at least another two hours that everything returns to normal, and she’s completely kept the error message from even sending out to the rest of the ship. There’s nothing that could possibly interfere with this, and she figures that’s plenty of time to allow her magic to work.

 

There’s a  _ small _ chance they might end up killing each other instead, but hopefully with the amount of tension there already is, what will happen will be as far from that as possible.

 

She grins brightly as she speeds up into a jog, dragging a grimacing Hunk along. 

 

“I locked them in, too!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hold on tight folks, cause we are [bottle episodin’ this the fuck up](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjP38hB-WBw).


	4. Ten Minutes in the Closet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not even an entire bottle episode could quench Lance's insatiable thirst.

Keith’s fist connects hard against the door, a quiet curse slipping from his lips as the metal quakes and clatters, but nothing of consequence seems to happen. It should have flown open when he’d neared it. It should have anticipated his need to leave and readied itself for his dramatic show of storming out.

But it does nothing. It sits completely still, nondescript. Shadows cling to the corners of the room, red lights blinking overhead as the temperature continues to climb and Lance’s endless rambling does nothing but spike his temper.

With another quiet curse, he shrugs out of his jacket and allows it to fall to the floor. Lance lets out a horrified sort of squeak, and while he doesn’t turn around, Keith can hear him scampering further into the room. 

He still has no idea what in the world is Lance’s problem. He can’t comprehend what he could have done to cause this that could have been bad enough for Lance to even refuse to listen to him and work together now that something is obviously wrong with the ship.

Granted, glitches in the castle have become so commonplace these days that no ounce of panic even lingers in his belly anymore when something like this happens, but Allura would be furious if she knew that they’d been too distracted by their bickering to even consider that maybe a Galra attack could be responsible for this.

Sighing deeply, he tears himself away from the door and turns to face Lance. Sweat beads at his forehead, itching between his shoulder blades and tingling along his arms. The control board isn’t working, and it won’t tell him the temperature, but he saunters over to check nonetheless — if only to give himself something to do as Lance presses his back against the furthest wall and watches him with suspicious eyes.

He really doesn’t need this right now. He has no idea why he had to be so bullheaded and not just leave Lance in here to train alone when he obviously didn’t want company.

Maybe it was the idea that Lance would have been totally fine with anyone else that made him so determined to stay. Maybe he’d been a little hurt when Lance had turned up his nose and scoffed at the mere idea of them working together. 

Maybe he’s still not as good at this whole “forging friendships” thing as everyone else seems to be, if he couldn’t even swallow his pride and accept rejection despite how aggressive Lance had been about not wanting anything to do with him. 

Oh well, he thinks, no use in beating himself up over it now. With the way that the ship always happens to glitch out at the worst possible moments, if he’d left, Lance would have been trapped in here alone. Even if he obviously won’t appreciate it, maybe it’s for the best that he has a little bit of company while they wait this one out. 

The temperature continues to rise, until his shirt clings to his sweaty chest in a way that chafes with each movement that he makes. He’s running his fingers over the controls, searching out even one dial or button that might not be darkened, if only so he won’t feel quite as much like a sitting duck. Lance has positioned himself in front of the exit, banging restlessly against the door and yelling for help. 

It’s useless, but at least it’s giving him something to do. Despite how annoying his pitiful screams become after only the first few minutes.

“Help!” he hollers, banging, banging, yelping, “I’m stuck in here with an asshole! I can’t die like this! Pidge! Hunk!  _ Anyone _ !”

Rolling his eyes, Keith moves away from the control board, roving his eyes over the walls and up towards the ceiling. The lights are flickering, the air so thick and hot that he can barely breathe. It reminds him of falling asleep in his desert home for the first few nights after he’d left the Garrison — how the wind had blown in sandy air through open windows. How the howling of creatures far off had torn through his groggy thoughts. The loneliness of those memories is muted now, probably because Lance won’t shut up, but maybe also because he understands that no one can truly be alone on this ship.

Even in the safety of his own room, there are still other people filling up the space surrounding him. He can’t wander through the halls without running into another living thing. It’s not like being in the desert. The solitude isn’t a smothering, overwhelming thing. The cries of monsters don't rattle through the air and remind him just how easily he could die here without anyone caring at all. 

As it is, Lance is screeching like they might do just that. Like the heat might kill them and he’ll be stuck spending his last living moments with Keith, as though that’s the worst fate in the universe that could possibly befall him. 

“Lance,” he huffs, tugging his head in Lance’s direction, but the yelling doesn’t stop, “Lance, listen to me.”

Lance continues to punch the door, adding in a few kicks as though kicking anything has ever done him any good. 

“Pidge! Allura! Coran!”

“Lance — ”

“Someone! Anyone! The door is stuck and it’s hot — ”

“Lance — ”

“Keith’s gross sweaty mullet is starting to reek in here — ”

“ _ Lance! _ ”

With that, Lance finally stops, turning to send him the dirtiest glare that he’s ever had the displeasure of receiving. Crossing his arms over his chest, Lance cocks out a hip. He seems as though he expects for Keith to have found a solution already, but his head is just now beginning to stop pounding after all of that noise. 

His frayed nerves calm. He works to even his breathing. 

They can do this, he tells himself, even if Lance refuses to work together. 

They’ll find a way out. They’ll break through the doors somehow. 

Then they’ll work on figuring out what the Hell is going on with this ship. 

 

* * *

 

Shiro sits quietly at the long dining table, tapping idle fingers against the surface as he watches Allura fiddling with some sort of remote that he still has yet to bring himself to ask about. She’s always tinkering with something, and while it should trouble him that the ship is apparently still not up to shape after so much time has passed, he can’t help but appreciate the focused look on her face as she works, the small strands of hair falling free from the massive bun tied against her scalp, the color tinting her cheeks, and the tiny stretch of tongue peeking out through full lips as she fumbles with the screwdriver or, whatever that thing is, in her hands.

“Shiro,” she says absently, not even bothering to look up from her task, “I’ve been meaning to go over some potential missions with you.”

He tells her that he has all of the time in the world, which only brings more color to her cheeks. His eyes trace the soft line of her jawbone, the subtle curve of her neck, the exposed swatches of collar bone obscured by the material of her spacesuit, that he doesn’t really understand why she’s wearing, but he can’t say that he minds it at all. It hugs her figure far better than her dress does. He kicks himself mentally for allowing his thoughts to wander, for tainting his image of this beautiful, powerful princess with the demands of his libido, but he tells himself that it’s normal — just as he’d told Lance. 

Allura is gorgeous, far more gorgeous than any woman whom he’s laid eyes on before. She’s gentle and she’s understanding, but he knows without a doubt that she could kick his ass in a battle if need be. He doesn’t know why he likes that in a woman. He’s never stopped to think about his type at all. 

But now, watching as she pushes a stray strand of hair away from her face with dainty, dangerous fingers, he decides that she must be everything that he would ever want from a partner: kind-hearted, so easy on the eyes that he could get lost watching her for hours without becoming bored, interesting, funny, and skilled in ways that he could never even imagine.

“Shiro, is something wrong?” Her voice drags him from his thoughts, and he clears his throat in embarrassment, “You seem to be somewhere else right now.”

_ ‘No’,  _ he might say, if he were more romantic, if maybe they weren’t trapped together on this ship only to constantly risk their lives to save the universe,  _ ‘I’m right here with you. I wouldn’t ever dream of being anywhere else.’ _

“U-uh, sorry,” he lies, “There’s been a little bit of trouble with the team lately. I’m worried that we might not be able to form Voltron if things keep going they way that they’re… uh… going.”

She looks up at that, worry tinging her expression as she sets down her project and turns to face him. He tries to ignore the way that his breath catches in his throat, the way that his skin burns everywhere that her eyes fall against him, the way that his heart thunders within his chest as though he’s in the midst of battle and not sitting across from a beautiful woman in the dining hall. 

“We’ve been picking up a lot of distress signals lately, specifically within this galaxy,” she tells him, slow and careful, as though gauging his reaction, “It would be very important to our mission to assist those planets in need. We might be able to strengthen our union and free more innocent lifeforms from Zarkon’s tyranny.” 

He listens, nodding at the proper intervals, willing his heart to beat slower and for his breath to even out. There must be something wrong with this spot in the universe, he tells himself. There must be something in the atmosphere that’s driving all of their hormones completely and utterly out of control. 

“This trouble that you speak of,” she adds, pushing the remote around on the table as her eyes flick from his face and her shoulders slacken, “Is it between Lance and Keith? There seems to be more tension between them than usual.”

Another nod, he clears his throat. He dips his head back and stares at the ceiling for a few frazzled heartbeats, wondering if it would be fair to dump all of these troubles on her, with so many other things surely stressing her out. 

But she deserves to know, he realizes. She deserves to be a part of this if only so she can feel more confident that they’ll succeed. If there’s a problem, she’s the higher-up. It’s his duty to report any potential problems to her if he wishes for this mission to run as smoothly as it should.

His need not to worry her is shadowed by the understanding of his mission. He hates himself for burdening her with these petty problems, but still…

Allura is strong, he knows this. Allura might not understand the nuances of human emotion completely, but she’s surely sharp enough to catch on to what’s been troubling Lance.

“Well, uh,” her intelligence doesn’t make it any easier for him to speak, however. He still fumbles with his words, “Alteans… When they reproduce, do they… do it sexually?”

For a split second, he can tell that she’s offended. How dare he ask her such personal questions, he’s sure that’s what she’s thinking. How dare he overstep such a thin boundary, between simple curiosity and information about her body that is surely none of his business. 

But she catches on. His mortification is short-lived when understanding washes away the disgust staining her features.

“Yes,” she tells him, looking away in embarrassment, “I believe that our reproduction systems are fairly similar to those of humans. We do so sexually, there is a gestation period. Sexual intercourse is practiced for fun at times, sometimes without the intention of reproducing at all.”

He needs to take a moment to cool off after she finishes. He wishes that he could take a breather without looking too weird. Whatever is going on with Lance, he’d better shape up after this. He’d better pull his head right out of his ass and figure out what he needs to do to fix this. 

Shiro is determined that he’s having this mortifying talk with Allura in the name of what is right and what is good, but for the life of him, he wishes that he could melt into the floor instead. 

The way that she’s sitting there, flustered, confused, surely judging the Hell out of all of them, he feels that he deserves a purple heart for going through with any of this at all. 

“So Lance’s issues with Keith,” she trails off for a mere moment, but it feels like an eternity as he prays to whichever deity might exist within the vastness of space that she understands where he’s going with this, “They’re.... Somehow related to human reproduction?”

They’re completely, wholly related, of course. That’s Lance’s entire problem. She doesn’t seem to grasp exactly how those things could connect, and he wills himself to be strong before he attempts to explain. 

“Well, they’re all very young,” he tells her, “They haven’t quite begun to understand how their bodies work yet, so there’s a lot of confusion.”

She cocks a brow, biting the inside of her cheek. With a cock of her head to the side, she mulls over his words before letting out a low, puzzled hum. 

“I don’t quite understand,” she tells him, “We haven’t stopped at any planets lately. When would Keith have gotten the chance to steal away the attention of any girls who Lance might have been trying to flirt with?”

Maybe homosexuality isn’t even a concept where she’s from. Maybe Allura just doesn’t understand that Lance could swing both ways despite only focusing his attention on women thus far. Maybe she’s as confused about Lance’s sexuality as he apparently is, or maybe it’s the idea of Lance pining after Keith, of all people, that is refusing to sink in. 

It would be hard to swallow, he thinks, if he hadn’t always noticed how intently Lance watches Keith’s every move, how strangely determined he is to best him at everything. It reminds him of little boys on the playground when he was a kid — pulling the pigtails of the cutest girls in their class, bullying innocent classmates in their childish confusion over their own feelings.

Lance doesn’t understand it himself, Shiro knows. He can’t wrap his head around the concept of liking someone so much that he can’t stand them. It would be cute, maybe, if it weren’t such a hindrance to their mission. If Lance’s childish crush weren’t putting the lives of billions of aliens and humans alike at risk. 

“It’s not like that,” he says finally, taking a long breath to calm himself before continuing, “They’re not fighting over a girl. I don’t think that Keith even knows what’s going on, honestly. He seems like he’s just as confused about it as everyone else is. You see, uh, Lance… isn’t attracted to any alien girls right now, he’s… attracted to… to Keith.”

A long moment that feels like a lifetime. A blank expression picking through his words as though looking for any hint of a joke. Allura eyes him warily, furrowing her brows as she struggles to contemplate whether or not he’s being serious. 

“That’s not funny,” she says, wrapping paling knuckles around the remote, “Forming Voltron is not a joke, Shiro. I thought you understood that.”

For a moment, he’s at a loss for words. He isn’t sure if he should push this or not. It’s bordering on snooping at this point, airing Lance’s dirty laundry for the entire ship to see. His obligation to report any issues to Allura is starting to feel like an excuse to defile Lance’s trust, and he’s so torn that he almost considers apologizing for a bad joke and carrying on as though this isn’t a very real problem. 

But the look on Allura’s face stops him. The idea that she would think that he’d joke about something so important doesn’t sit well with him at all. 

“I’m not joking,” he says slowly, “Listen, you can’t tell anyone else about this, okay? But… Lance has been having dreams about Keith lately. He told me that himself. They’re not what you would expect, and I think that’s what’s been bothering him. These dreams about Keith, uh… they’re… not something that you would dream about someone who you hate. I think he needs help. He needs someone to guide him through this and allow him to understand that there’s nothing wrong with feeling this way about a fellow Paladin.”

She perks up as he continues, ears twitching in a way that he has to stop himself from becoming too distracted by. He’ll think about them later, he tells himself. Right now, there are more important things going on than how adorable those ears might be. 

“Lance is having conflicting feelings about Keith…” she allows the words to hang in the air between them, wrapping her lips around each syllable as though she’s still having trouble believing that this could be true, “You believe that he’s lashing out at Keith because of this? So it might be troublesome if they aren’t getting along. Someone needs to help them, I suppose.”

She’s rambling, but he allows her to do so. He watches the rising and falling of her brows, the stiffness of her lips, the nervous tittering of her fingers against the table. 

“I guess we’ll need to figure something out then,” she says eventually, “For the sake of Voltron, we can’t allow Lance to continue to be conflicted.”

He doesn’t like the sound of that at all. It sounds like meddling, but Allura’s face brightens at the mere idea of it. She’s radiating with excitement, straightening in her seat as she begins to list off all of the possible things that they could do to make Lance realize what he’s feeling.

“This is going to be so much fun!” she cheers, reaching forward to shake him by the shoulders, before rising from her seat and making her way hurriedly toward the door, “I’ve never played matchmaker before! Can you imagine, Shiro? It will be as though we’re a couple of human secret agents! This is so exciting!”

The click of her heels echoes down the hall, and only when he can no longer hear her, does Shiro consider that maybe this was a very, very bad idea. 

 

* * *

 

Lance screeches when the lights go out completely, even the red security bulbs fizzling out to total blackness. With an aggravated growl, Keith slumps against the control board, resigning himself to a long, sleepless night of Lance’s terrified screaming and childish complaints until the ship either begins to run again or someone actually finds them here.

It’s only growing hotter somehow, despite the fact that a lack of power on a ship veering through space would indicate that the temperature would actually drop, but he can’t bring himself to worry about that when his shirt is chafing in all of the wrong places, and he’s sweating so profusely that he worries that he might actually begin to smell up the place as Lance had accused him of earlier. 

It’s not that he would mind so much, really, if they’d been sparring. It wouldn’t have been unnatural to stink a little after a long match, but for whatever reason, the idea of smelling so bad around Lance when he hasn’t done anything but sit here makes him uncomfortable enough that he pulls his shirt over his head and discards it somewhere within the darkness. 

“Lance,” he calls, monotoned if only to mask his growing frustration, “Are you okay? Where are you?”

Lance doesn’t reply for a long time, but he can hear the pattering of his shoes against the floor. He’s still near the exit, hands patting the door, groping around in the blackness for a light switch that he should know better than to expect will work. 

Maybe doing something makes him feel better, even if he knows that it’s useless to try. In any other situation, maybe Keith would be right there with him, but he hasn’t slept well in almost a week. He’s been lucky to down even a third of his meals. He’s so frazzled with stress and annoyance because of the very guy that he’s trapped in this room with that he doesn’t have the strength to do anything but sit still and listen. 

“C-can you just shut up?” Lance sputters, knocking against something hard enough that the resounding bang echoes against the walls, “S-shit! See?! Can — can you just let me focus here?! You’re always so annoyingly quiet, and now you just won’t shut your stupid mullet mouth!”

“Mullet Mouth” makes about as much sense as the concept of the seven words that he just spoken being considered “talking too much” by someone like Lance, who can never seem to be quiet. He lets it slide for the sake of not making things worse between them, oddly proud of himself for quelling his temper during a time like this. Lance continues to bump against the walls, cursing quietly and whimpering the most pathetic of complaints. He hates the dark, he hates being stuck in “small spaces” with cocky jackasses with bad haircuts. He hates being in space and he hates riding on a ship that breaks down every other day. 

It sounds like a whole lot of angsty teenage nonsense to Keith, but he still doesn’t risk opening his mouth to say so. He’ll let Lance have his little meltdown, if only so it will pull him out of whatever the Hell is causing him to act so moody. Maybe once this is all over, they can go back to normal and pretend that Lance hasn’t been avoiding him for almost two weeks now. 

As his eyes adjust the the darkness, he’s gradually able to make out Lance’s outline against the door. He spots the dim lights of a panel high up on the wall, just bright enough that it gives him the faintest ray of hope that maybe they aren’t trapped in here until someone comes along to save them. He never put a lot of thought into the controls of this room. He’s only used the voice commands when he’s trained. He isn’t sure what those buttons do, but maybe they’ll at least fix the heating. If Lance will agree to help him, to hoist him up so he can reach, he’s sure that he could figure something out. 

Maybe, at the very least, they’ll get the lights on again. Then Lance can stop practically ramming himself into the same wall over and over again as he fumbles in the dark. 

“Lance,” he whispers, and he isn’t entirely sure why he’s being so quiet. He feels as though, if he whispers, maybe Lance won’t feel like he’s talking so much and actually listen to him, “Hey, I think I found something.”

He grasps the edge of the control board to hoist himself up, brushing off the seat of his pants as he stumbles on half-asleep legs towards the wall. His hair clings to the back of his neck with sweat, tickling his bare skin. Blindly, he digs around in his pockets, pulling out one of the rubber bands that he carries with him just in case his hair might get caught on something during a fight. 

Lance is turning toward him as he ties his hair back. He’s squinting, struggling to make out where the voice is coming from, and Keith wonders how bad his night vision must be if he hasn’t gotten used to the dark yet. Maybe he needs glasses like Pidge. Maybe they should talk to Allura about getting his eyes checked. 

He pushes thoughts of what Lance might look like wearing glasses to the back of his mind. They don’t have time for this. 

“Do you see those lights? The ones near the ceiling? I think those are more controls. If you can lift me up there, I might be able to get us out of here.”

Lance looks doubtful. He cranes his neck to see the lights in question, tipping his head to the side and running a hand through sweaty hair. 

“And what makes you think that I want to be close enough to you to do that?”

It’s a petty question. Keith almost gives in to the temptation to fight, but he swallows that anger. He almost tells Lance that if he’s so afraid of his “Sweaty, smelly, silky mullet” he can figure out some other way to get them out of here, but he knows that it would only result in an argument. It’s too hot for that. He’s still drenched in sweat, tempted to shed his pants as well if only to allow himself to cool off, but he has a feeling that Lance would be even weirder if he did. 

Something about his body, he thinks. He’s noticed the way that Lance’s eyes have traveled over his chest when they’ve eaten together, roving over his shoulders, toward his hair, creeping over to settle against his lips. He’s been telling himself that it has something to do with fighting, maybe. Maybe Lance is deciding which part of him would be weakest to an attack. Maybe he’s picking apart his appearance in order to decide which thing to insult when the mullet jokes finally grow tired.

He hasn’t dabbled much in insecurity, honestly. There are enough things wrong with his personality that he’s never considered that he might be ugly too. He isn’t sure how he would feel if Lance told him that he had a weird nose, or crooked teeth. He doesn’t know if he would be able to brush it off or not. The unflinching stares make him uncomfortable in a way that he’s unfamiliar with. His heart races, his thoughts muddle together into a pool of nothing but questions — _ ’Why is he staring for so long? What is he looking for? What does he see when he looks at me?’ _ _ — _ and he can’t ever seem to muster the strength to do anything but pretend to ignore it, if only so he won’t make a fool out of himself by blowing something as insignificant as someone looking at him strangely out of proportion.

Shaking away those troubling thoughts, he takes another step forward. He flicks his gaze from Lance to the panel high up on the wall, cracking his knuckles and dragging out a long breath.

“Well, if you want to be stuck here with me for the rest of the night, be my guest,” he says, “But for now, it’s our only chance to get out of here.”

 

* * *

 

Hunk likes to consider himself above all of the drama circulating around the ship these days. He tries to tiptoe around the thin line between knowing what is going on lest he need to distance himself, and actually getting involved with anything that might cause a lot of unneeded trouble. He’s not stupid, of course, and he realizes that there’s a whole lot of tension surrounding Lance and Keith, but for the life of him, he can’t fathom what could have happened to cause any of it. 

The night before everything went down, Lance had been acting as normal as he usually does. He’d been telling jokes, starting play-fights, recalling tales of lovers back home that Hunk knew weren’t true at all, but he’d enjoyed listening anyway. He’d taken Keith up on an offer to train together, itching to “kick some cocky mullet ass”. He’d geared up, seeming to skip towards the training deck, but something that had happened inside had changed him.

Hunk thinks of all of those cheesy thrillers back on Earth. Of aliens possessing innocent human hosts and causing them to lose their minds. He thinks of seeing the ghost of an old ancestor, of witnessing something so horrific that Lance might never return to his usual easy going self again.

He’d voiced this concern to Pidge earlier — _ ”What if Keith is an alien, Pidge? What if he sucked the soul right out of Lance? Pidge, listen, what if Keith got him alone in that training room and fed off of his life-force? Pidge _ _ — _ _ Keith could be a soul-sucking alien and none of us would even know! Where did he even come from?! He’s never talked about his family _ _ — _ _ P-Pidge, what if Keith really is an alien and he’s planning on sucking the life out of all of us?!” _

Pidge had fixed him with a long, tired stare. She’d been working on wiring something that looked far too suspicious to be her regular, run-of-the-mill alterations to the ship. After a moment, she’d sighed, working a finger between her brows and setting down the mess of spare parts and wires in her hands.

_ “I’m not going to tell you that Keith isn’t interested in sucking something out of Lance,” _ she’d told him,  _ “But I don’t think it’s going to be his soul. Trust me, the rest of us are safe.” _

She’d grimaced as though she’d said something particularly lewd, but the terror plaguing Hunk’s thoughts had displaced any reason that could have penetrated his fear. He’d taken her words entirely wrong, gasping in horror as he’d considered Keith’s jaws unhinging, numerous spiked teeth emerging from his lips and driving themselves into Lance’s abdomen. He’d imagined Lance’s agonized screams as this alien Keith sucked out his innards like he was some kind of juicy human-burrito. The thought had left him both terrified and starving, stomach vibrating with fear and hunger as he’d considered which would be easier to address.

He’d chosen hunger only after Pidge had finished her project. He didn’t like the idea of her leaving Lance alone in a room with someone so intent on sucking something out of him, but he’d reasoned with himself that she must have known what she was doing. She wouldn’t have put Lance in danger unless it was absolutely necessary.

Only after he’d eaten did he realize what she’d meant. 

A startling train of thought — from Lance’s strange outburst over breakfast over a week ago, to Pidge’s sly comment about Keith wanting to suck —

“Ugh,  _ quiznak _ ,” he’d groaned, dropping his nearly-finished bowl of goo onto the table, “Lance and Keith?! Is she nuts?!”

The idea alone of Lance and Keith curling up together, naked and sweaty in bed makes his stomach turn. If Lance had alluded to having an interest in guys, yeah, sure, he’d be totally okay with it. That’s not the issue at all. They’ve been bros for far too long for him to allow anything as silly as his friend’s sexuality to change his mind about him, but the idea of it being with Keith… Ugh, they’re like his brothers! They’re bonded for life! Lance hates Keith! He hates his mullet! He hates the way that he smells and the way that he smiles, the way that he laughs during rare moments when he lets his guard down completely. 

Lance has told him this many times, reassuring him that his hatred is completely, one-hundred percent pure. That despite their begrudging friendship, he’ll never see Keith as anything but another hurdle on his way to the top of the pack. 

He’d continued to mull over these old conversations for a long time, and now, after many, many minutes have melted into hours and his goo has grown cold, he realizes, with a start, that Lance is a total idiot who has no idea how he feels about anything.

Who goes into such painstaking detail about their so-called enemy’s smile? Who takes the time to study his every move to such lengths that he can mock even the subtle sway of his hips when he walks? When Lance mocks Keith’s husky voice during battles, Hunk has always admired how accurate it sounds, despite the lingering feelings of guilt for making fun of someone who he considers to be his friend as well. Keith’s never done anything to deserve the animosity, he knows, and he tries not to pick sides, but he reasons that someone needs to have Lance’s back even when he’s acting like a bratty kid.

But the way that he’s memorized Keith’s voice, the way that he can mimic his facial expressions down to the slight draw of his brows when he’s thinking too hard about something that he’d never lower himself to tell anyone. The way that he’s so acutely aware of what Keith might be thinking even though he’s never asked. Hunk doesn’t think that it’s normal for someone who supposedly hates someone else. He thinks that maybe Lance has been mistaking this want for dislike for a little bit longer than he’s comfortable admitting. 

All the way back at the Garrison, when Keith had behaved as though he had no idea who Lance was, despite how many days they’d spent together in the classroom, despite how popular Lance had become for his witty sense of humor and his need to get on everyone’s good side. Keith’s head was always in the clouds, always so unfocused until he was behind the wheel of the simulator. It truly felt like watching a master at work when Keith piloted the ship, as though the instructors had brought him in simply to show everyone who they should aspire to be once they’d graduated. 

Keith had become a celebrity for his skill alone. Lance had become synonymous with a depressing sort of failure. A good-natured guy who couldn’t ever catch a break. The unsung hero who deserved to succeed but never had the ability to do so. Maybe he’d been insulted that Keith couldn’t remember his name or even recognize his face. Maybe he’d grown frustrated because those feelings of rivalry were a little more than he was letting on.

It’s making Hunk’s head hurt even thinking about it. He tosses his plate in the chute, deciding that the best course of action would be to not even think about it at all. 

Pidge can meddle, he’s not going to stop her, but he’s not going to get involved either. He’ll let Lance work this out at his own pace, and if he ever feels the need to vent about it, well, Hunk will try to be there to lend a listening ear. 

As he’s gathering his things and deciding whether he wants to shower before bed or in the morning, he picks up the sound of footsteps drawing nearer to the room. He turns just in time to find Shiro, oddly frazzled, gripping the doorframe with his prosthetic hand.

“Hunk,” he greets, a little breathless, “Have you seen Lance or Keith? I can’t reach them. They’ve been gone for almost an hour now. We’ve lost power in certain parts of the ship, and Allura is having trouble booting them back up.”

Okay, so Shiro is freaking out. He’s not going to lie to the guy, not when he’s looking so positively miserable with worry. Pidge had her fun. She had over an hour to see if this experiment would work or not. Maybe it’s time to let Lance and Keith catch a break, if only so Shiro can settle down and stop flipping out about it.

“Uh, I think I saw them, yeah,” he says, feigning innocence, hoping that Shiro is too exhausted to pick up on the uncertainty in his voice, “Do… do you want me to look with you?”

Shiro nods, an appreciative smile drawing out across his lips. Hunk tries to tell himself that he’s doing the right thing, but he can’t quell the feeling of dread swelling painfully in his chest.

 

* * *

 

“Can you stop moving around? You’re going to drop me.”

“I-I’m not doing it on purpose! You’re too heavy!”

“Just hold still! If you’d stop moving, I could get this done in no time.”

“W-why are you shirtless?! You don’t see me getting naked in here! D-do you think my idea of a fun night was having your naked body rubbed against me?!”

Keith doesn’t reply to that one, and in his embarrassment, Lance almost drops him for the third time tonight. He’s acutely aware of the strong thighs wrapped around the back of his head, holding tight against his shoulders as Keith’s crotch rests firmly against the back of his neck. He tries to thwart any thoughts of all of his horrible dreams — of Keith’s head between his legs, of his head between Keith’s, in a different position. He tries not to focus too much on the musky smell, of the sweat and the soap, of the sweet body wash and minty shampoo.

He feels drunk, almost, from the smell of Keith alone. His knees knock under Keith’s weight, erection straining against the material of his pants so uncomfortably that he barely manages to stay upright. Keith’s skin is surprisingly smooth. He smells nice even as he’s drenched in perspiration.

The soft pattering of his breathing vibrates through Lance like an electrical pulse, burning him from the outside in each time that Keith’s firm belly brushes against the back of his head. His hands grip muscular calves just a little too hard, but neither of them mention it. For being so short, Keith’s feet are surprisingly large, and Lance finds himself delving into even more awful thoughts with this realization.

He still can’t see anything but shadows. He has no clue how Keith knows what he’s doing. He can only feel the warmth of another body against his, the weight of a lithe figure atop his shoulders, the smoothness of hot skin wrapped around him, the outline of Keith’s penis through the front of his pants.

He chokes back a frightened yelp, jostling Keith once more as he struggles to change his line of thought. Keith is pressed against him, yes. There is a penis on the back of his neck. Keith smells awesome even when he’s sweaty — like a manly field of flowers, like a men’s deodorant commercial hijacked a candy store. He’s soft in all of the right places, firm in others that make something in the pit of Lance’s stomach ache. 

But he can do this. For the good of all mankind, he can sit here and he can ignore the dick. He can ignore Keith. He can ignore his stupid, chiseled muscles and his insufferable, velvety skin. He can pretend that the shallow breathing above him doesn’t remind him of the strangled cries in his dreams. He can convince himself that the thoughts running through his mind are anything but absolutely, overwhelmingly gay, and that there’s nothing suspiciously erotic about Keith straddling him in a dark room, practically naked.

Just as Keith lets out a triumphant gasp, the lights flicker on and the ventilation system kicks to life. He’s blinded by the overbearing lights, stumbling backwards as the door hisses open and a twin pair of voices call into the room.

Keith yells in terror, berating him for not sitting still. They’re tumbling down, hitting the floor. Shiro and Hunk are staring at both of them, wide-eyed and so surprised that they’re speechless. 

As though this week couldn’t get any worse, Keith falls on top of him, knocking the air from his lungs. There’s a face planted firmly in his crotch, a nose nuzzling right up against the aching shaft of his erection through his jeans, a perfectly sculpted ass shoved in his face. 

“U-uh, whoa,” Hunk says slowly, the tapping of his footsteps backing away from the door, “Should we come back later?”

Lance looks around Keith’s ass toward them, meeting Shiro’s eyes. There’s a knowing frown tugging at his lips, and Lance thinks that he might be sick to his stomach. 

He still can’t catch his breath. Keith is pulling himself up, his backside settling on top of Lance’s chest. He’s cursing quietly, tugging a hand through his hair. 

And Lance spots it — the cherry on top of the shit-cake that is his life:

Keith has his stupid fucking mullet tied back in a tiny ponytail. 

He wishes that he’d hit his head during the fall. 

He wants nothing more than to fall asleep and not wake up until all of this is over. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Lemon said to me, "Let's do a bottle episode."
> 
> I said, "I have no idea what that is, but let's do it."
> 
> So basically I tasked myself with writing just Lance and Keith trapped in a room together for an entire chapter, but then Shiro happened, and Hunk, and this isn't exactly a bottle episode anymore. Oh well. I hope you guys enjoyed it anyway!
> 
> But... where is Coran? Where is he hiding? I guess we'll just have to wait and find out.


	5. If Only Careless Whisper Were Playing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just another day in Bisexual Hell.

_Lance steps into the darkened training deck. He tugs at the collar of his shirt, noting the difference in temperature as the door closes to the hall and he finds himself surrounded by shadowy, humid air. He can barely make out anything around him as he makes his way further into the room, brushing off the feeling of eyes roving his body and reasoning with himself that the dark would make anyone feel a little paranoid, especially on a supposedly “not haunted” supernatural ship._

_His footsteps echo against the walls, breath heavy and haggard as he drags a nervous hand through his hair. He’s drenched in sweat, considering momentarily that maybe he should take off his jacket, but feeling far too nervous in the darkness to do so._

_“Laaaaaance,” a voice calls out, low and sultry, more of a purr than human tongue._

_He jumps, nearly slipping on the slick tile of the floor as he bounds back._

_“Lance,” the voice continues, “It’s sooooo, so hot in here. Do you think you could cool me off?”_

_He thinks about his lion’s ice abilities, but those will do no good here. He has no idea how he would even begin to go about cooling someone off in this heat._

_The lights are gradually growing brighter, illuminating each of the controls, the windows high up on the walls. The figure sprawled out on the floor, naked from the waist up._

_Keith’s face cracks open in a feral grin. He runs slow fingers over his exposed chest. Spread out on his side, an arm resting on his hip, a flush coloring his cheeks. His hair, Lance notes, is pulled up in twin pigtails resting against sweaty shoulders._

_Whatever time it is, he tells himself, it’s far too early for this shit._

_He takes a careful step forward, clearing his throat as he fumbles with the words that he wants to say. Keith’s grin grows only wider, cocky and insufferable as always, with a hint of something unfamiliar and hungry gleaming in his dark eyes._

_Lance doesn’t like this at all. He swears, despite the growing bulge between his legs, that he’s hating every second of this._

_“Lance, Lance, Lance,” Keith lists off his name as though he’s saying something dirty, tweaking an unusually hard nipple as his eyes travel down to the tent in the front of Lance’s jeans, “Why do you keep denying this? Why don’t you just accept it? I could make you feel really, really good, you know.”_

_It sounds nothing like anything that Keith might ever say to him, but Lance isn’t in the state of mind to consider that. His legs seem determined to betray him, carrying him further toward Keith despite how desperately he wants to run away._

_Keith smiles like a cat watching a canary escape its cage, extending his hand from his chest as though reaching forward to welcome Lance to him. There’s something devious in the way that his lips part to expose pearly teeth, something that makes every ounce of blood flow straight from Lance’s brain to his groin._

_This is such a bad idea._

_This is exactly what Lance doesn’t want to happen._

_With anyone else, maybe this wouldn’t be such a big deal. Maybe he could brush it off as hormones or crazy space illnesses, or whatever other excuses Shiro could feed him to make him feel better, but this is Keith. This is the last person in the universe that he would ever even consider being friends with_ _—_ _let alone_ _—_ _w-whatever the Hell this is!_

_His body doesn’t listen. He’s crouching down in front of Keith, closing the distance between them as their lips meet and he swears that the reflections of all of the stars outside are blinding his vision. The temperature of the room skyrockets, and he takes only a moment to consider that this is probably the worst thing to be doing if Keith wants to cool off._

_Closing his eyes against the dizzying lights, he climbs over Keith’s body, far too jittery and far too nervous to actually touch skin to skin just yet._

_He tangles his fingers in inky hair, breath ragged as he wills his eyes to open. He wants to look Keith in the face, to drink him in entirely as their bodies intertwine and their heartbeats mingle to become one single sound echoing throughout the empty training deck. Slick with sweat, he fumbles with nervous hands against Keith’s milky skin._

_Keith strangles a laugh that’s more of a moan than anything Lance has ever heard leave his lips before._

_“Lance,” Keith whispers, barely even there at all, avoiding his gaze with violet eyes trained on something far-off in the shadows, “I—I want you… to be my first.”_

 

Lance awakens in cold, sweat-dampened sheets. He’s breathing so hard that his chest aches. With a curse, he runs a hand through damp hair, noting the bulge still pressing against the seam of his pants as he focuses his stare on the stars moving slowly outside of the window.

This is getting ridiculous.

Actually, this became completely ridiculous days ago. Now it’s positively insufferable.

He hasn’t spoken to Keith for three days now, since the training deck fiasco went down. Shiro sends him pitying, albeit stern frowns, reminding him of the importance of Voltron’s mission each time that he rises to leave when Keith enters a room. Even things with Hunk have been awkward. Neither of them have mentioned it, but he knows that Hunk knows, and that’s enough to make him never want to speak to anyone else on the ship ever again.

Maybe it’s fine. Maybe he can bond with everyone while forming Voltron and lock himself away in his room during downtime. Keith’s usually the one avoiding all of them, but lately, it’s as though he’s purposefully trying to show up everywhere that Lance decides to hide before he even thinks of heading over. There’s a certain look on his face as of late, a strange shadow sitting heavily in the pits of Keith’s eyes. His bottom lip juts out only slightly, caught between troubled teeth as he crosses his arms over his chest and appears as though he’s fighting very hard not to say something.

Lance finds that he’s not even remotely interested in what Keith might have to say. He finds that if he never has to hear Keith or see Keith ever again, he might be able to live a happy, remotely normal, stress-free existence.

Just as he’s running all of the options through his head, planning out how he’ll actually manage to avoid Keith for the rest of their journey through the universe, Allura’s voice crackles over the loudspeakers, announcing to everyone that she needs to see all of them in the dining hall as soon as possible.

He isn’t sure what time it is in space time, or in whichever sort of routine that they’ve found on the ship. But he’s tired, more tired than he’s been in days, and he reasons with himself that it must be entirely too early for this sort of thing.

With a grumble, he pulls himself out of bed. He almost heads out in his pajamas out of pure spite, but he realizes right as he’s stepping out of the door that the stiffness between his legs still has yet to go down, and if he doesn’t want to give everyone an eyeful, he might need to change into something a little more constricting and uncomfortable.

Great.

He wonders what Keith will be wearing when gather together for this meeting, and he hates himself for even allowing his thoughts to wander to what Keith even wears to bed.

Even if he does manage to avoid the cocky piece of shit, he isn’t entirely certain that he can ever stop him from weaseling his sneaky mullet-headed ass into his thoughts. He has enough things on his plate right now without someone like Keith occupying his mind relentlessly, confusing his dreams, usurping everything that he once considered to be important until the way that Keith’s skin might feel under his fingertips or the way that his hair must smell up close are the only things that he can ever bring himself to think about.

He’s so tired. He’s so weary.

And still, Keith won’t leave him alone.

 

* * *

 

Keith watches as Shiro takes a seat next to him, smiling brightly despite the exhaustion hanging heavily under his eyes. Everyone seems so tired lately, possibly because of the weight of their mission, but Keith finds that it’s more likely that Lance’s recent night terrors might be the source of it. He’s overheard Allura and Shiro talking about it frequently, going over plans of action that die on their lips each time that they catch him watching, as though he has no business knowing what’s going on with his fellow Paladin.

It’s frustrating, to say the least, that everyone seems to know something that he doesn’t, and no one is willing to let him in on this big secret that they’re apparently keeping. Even Pidge and Hunk have been whispering behind his back, inviting Coran into their little circle to talk about whatever it is that they think is none of his business. He thought that he’d left this sort of childishness behind at the Garrison, that he’d no longer have to walk into a room and feel the eyes of people who just finished talking about him staring him down. He thought that part of being a team was having no secrets, no judgment, none of this _“us vs. you”_ that he’s been feeling weighing so heavily down on him that he can barely focus on anything but their prying eyes.

With a long sigh, he shakes his head to chase away those thoughts. Allura seems to think that whichever announcement she’s about to make is important enough to wake them up three hours early, so he might as well take it seriously too. Shiro depends on him to be the reliable one, and despite how betrayed he’s been left feeling, he can’t let everyone down just because of this schoolyard horseshit that they’re all so determined to pull on him.

Lance is the last one to enter, and it’s really no surprise. He’s a sweaty, miserable mess: hair standing up in all directions as he scowls grumpily at each of them. Keith tries not to notice the purposeful way that he won’t look in his direction. He tells himself that it doesn’t really matter if Lance has decided to undo months of bonding and team-building because of whatever grudge he’s decided to dig up lately. Furrowing his brow, he looks away as Lance takes a seat as far away from him as possible; far enough away that he’s separated from the rest of the group and Allura has to step back a little further to see all of them.

“Paladins,” she greets, taking a moment to look Lance up and down as a troubled sort of frown settles against her lips, “I’ve gathered each of you here to announce that we’ve just received an urgent distress signal from a planet called Androgia.”

She waves her arm in the air, indicating the dusty blue planet sitting far off in the distance through the long, wide window, close enough that Keith understands that they’ll probably be landing later today. Lance seems to register this as well, groaning moodily from his spot at the end of the table.

“Androgia is a gentle planet,” she tells them, “they were part of the Alliance with Altea during my father’s reign. That being said, it has been ten thousand years since we’ve had contact with them, so we must proceed with caution.”

It’s the same shtick that they’ve been given with every mission, so Keith allows his thoughts to wander. He finds himself sneaking tiny glances at Lance, taking in the bags under his eyes, the dryness of his skin, the greasiness of his hair. He looks rough. He looks exhausted. Keith hasn’t seen him like this before, despite everything that they’ve been through together. He wonders what could be causing it—if his homesickness has grown terrible enough that he’s all but given up, if he’s actually coming down with some kind of illness, if he needs some kind of help that none of them even know how to give him.

He finds himself wondering, despite the twinge that it sends through his chest, if whatever is going on with Lance is really his fault after all, if all of this could have been avoided if he hadn’t been so bullheaded in his determination to become friends.

Lance meets his gaze across the table, a bright flush working across his cheeks so quickly that Keith doesn’t even have a chance to register his anger before he’s rising from his seat and knocking his chair back against the floor.

“What?!” Lance yelps, really, truly yelps, like a pissy chihuahua nipping at the fingers of an unwanted visitor, “Why the _quiznak_ are you staring at me, mullet?! Got something to say?!”

At first, Keith is so taken aback that he can’t speak. Mouth agape, he watches as Lance tears himself away from the table and looks around at the rest of the group.

“He’s always staring at me, don’t look at me like that!” he’s trembling now, whether with rage or something else entirely, Keith isn’t sure, “Why can’t you just leave me alone?! I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t go to the bathroom without your stupid mullet-face popping up out of nowhere!”

Before Keith can rise from his seat as well, finally giving in to his anger after bottling it up each time that he catches Lance obviously trying to avoid him, Allura speaks up. She smacks a hand hard against the table, staring at Lance with a stern frown that Keith hasn’t seen anyone use since his teachers at the Garrison would berate problem students during class.

“Lance, you quit that this instance,” she says, firm and loud, unflinching as Lance turns his angry stare towards her, “Keith hasn’t done anything to you. You need to stop acting like a child and start acting like a Paladin. Your lion didn’t select you because you’re a child. It selected you because you’re a hero, so you’d better start behaving like one.”

Lance’s anger fizzles out immediately. His shoulders slump, cheeks darkening another few shades as he fetches his chair from the floor and slides it back underneath the table.

“Fine,” he grumbles, “If anyone needs me, I’m taking a shower. Let me know when we’re ready to land on _Androgo_ or whatever.”

As he’s slinking out of the room, Allura corrects him with a chipper, _“It’s Androgia, actually. Try to get it right when we land, Lance”,_ but he doesn’t pay her any mind. Everyone is rising and gathering their things, chatting idly about the mission. Coran is asking Pidge about some mysterious box that he’d found attached to the control panel, Hunk is telling Shiro about the new recipe that he’d created from the food goo, and Keith pushes down his anger for the thousandth time, feeling only slightly better after Allura’s outburst.

He’s deciding whether or not he wants to train when Allura stops him, a gentle hand warm against his shoulder and a smile aimed in his direction that he isn’t entirely sure how he’s supposed to react to. Normal people might smile back, but he finds that his lips won’t turn up for him. Maybe it’s the fact that Lance was obviously trying to start a fight. Maybe it’s the idea that the problems between them still have yet to be solved despite the fact that everyone seems to realize that they’re there. He can’t quite feel at ease, not even with Allura’s gentle eyes looking down at him. He can’t bring himself to let his guard down completely.

“Keith,” she says, her voice soft and careful, “Don’t let it get to you, okay? Lance is having a hard time adjusting.”

Adjusting to what, is what he wants to ask her, but then she’s pulling him into a tight, awkward hug. His arms stay frozen at his sides. His eyes widen as his pulse spikes, and he tries to remember the last time that someone pulled him into their arms so willingly.

“U-uh, yeah,” is all that he can manage to say, “Thanks.”

As she pulls away, he focuses on Androgia growing closer through the window. He takes in the dusty white clouds, the powdery blue of the oceans, the distant mixture of brown dirt and green grass. He finds himself hoping that something might happen here to change them, to make things right again within their group.

He hates himself for hoping. Hoping never does anything but breed disappointment.

But even still, as he ventures into the training deck and starts the simulator, he crosses his fingers and prays that Lance will stop looking at him like an enemy, and start looking at him like a friend again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there! Moth again. You might be thinking, if you find yourself caring enough, 'But Moth, didn't you just write last week's chapter? What gives? Why do we need to suffer through your writing twice in a row?'
> 
> And the answer to that is that Lemon has been extremely busy lately, so I offered to write a short sort of "intro" chapter to hers in order to keep up with our weekly posting date. Not a lot happens in this chapter, and I'm very sorry about that! But we did get more of Lance pining away, and Coran appears! Finally. 
> 
> Anyway, thanks so much to everyone who has been reading and commenting so far! Next week's chapter is going to be a ton of fun!


	6. Non-Binary Code

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> #Save Ahmeeth from their emo angsty ways 2k16

From afar, the approaching mass of Androgia seemed large, but as the ship pulled closer towards its destination, Lance was a little taken aback by how small it actually was. After returning to his room to sulk and avoid the team (but mostly to avoid Keith’s obnoxious piercing stares), lest he have another inappropriate hormone-fueled outburst, he’d taken to watching their impending arrival from the window of his room.

 

He guessed it was probably not much bigger than Pluto, and it was rather plain looking and unassuming. It bore no rings or any strange funky colors like a lot of the other planets they’d passed in this galaxy as of late.

 

As they plummet through the atmosphere, colors whizz by faster than any plane ride could compare - yet the view isn’t much different to his days coasting the skies during flight school as a young teen.

 

There’s huge bodies of sky blue water, a spattering of fluffy clouds, mixtures of vibrant greens and browns dotting over a horizon of what appears to be two suns setting at different rates over the land. They pass totteringly high mountains, vast deserts, icy glaciers - even a few volcanoes - over the span of mere minutes. Besides the two sun thing, and the fact they could probably travel from one hemisphere to the next within a matter of a few days by car, it resonates a strikingly deep, painful pang into Lance’s heart.

 

It looks a lot like Earth.

 

Lance shoves aside the feelings that come to overwhelm him quickly, the crawling anxiety and depression of a homesickness he has not even nearly begun to get over by any means, and stands up straight, cracking his back. Similar planet, similar atmosphere - odds are where there’s those delightful ingredients mixing together, there will be plenty of similar humanoid-like babes to hit on.

 

Maybe he can erase these terrible new feelings towards Keith. Maybe, if he finds enough distractions, or can release this build up of tension with someone else, he’ll be able to return to the way they were before. As he heads towards his door right when Allura’s voice announces their arrival over the intercom, he doesn’t backtrack in his head to correct himself about that - _returning to the way they were_.

 

So maybe Keith is annoying, yeah. So maybe he’s arrogant, impulsive, and slightly socially inept. So maybe his awful haircut is actually kind of hot - especially in a ponytail. Maybe the way he cocks his head when he’s naively trying to understand something he doesn’t quite get is admittedly cute at times. Maybe the fire that burns over his features when he’s angry is way sexier than it has any right to be, or maybe his stupid eyes are sort of pretty, and his damn skin a creamy color more beautiful than anything Lance’s ever seen before - if you like that sort of thing, that is, Lance thinks, shaking his head of the intrusive thoughts.

 

Not that he does.

 

Putting all that aside, he finds that being on better terms with Keith before everything went to hell wasn’t actually as bad as he was making it out to be. Honestly, all he’d wanted was about an equally as matched sparring buddy, so that’s what he wants to return to naturally - being able to spar with Keith and one up him by kicking his smarmy ass without...focusing so much on the alluring shape of said smarmy ass.

 

There’s nothing else he desires from him. It’s definitely _not_ friendship he wants, and certainly nothing more than that.

 

So Lance strides to the main hall in confidence, joins the others with a smug smirk plastered on his face as if he didn’t just have a hissy fit about a half hour before. He shoots that cocky grin towards Keith, who’s standing off awkwardly by himself near the large window, serious resting pouty face only pulling further into a frown at that. Lance ignores the unsettling tug that spreads in his gut from seeing that frown, ignores the low, hushed sort of whispers between Pidge, Hunk, and Coran (who are set off to the side in a suspicious huddle), ignores the concerned shared parental-esque looks Shiro and Allura keep shooting him.

 

The only one who seems remotely supportive of him is Rover, who’s hovering near him and humming small little bleeps that sure sound like approval.

 

“Yeah, I know, I’m pretty hot stuff, Rover,” Lance says flippantly, whipping back his hair and pushing out a hip as he crosses his arms. Rover flashes blue at him in quick succession - whatever the hell that means, though Lance considers they are probably agreeing with him. He’s about to attempt to give the equivalent of a robot high five to Rover, when they put off fast at the call of Pidge to return back to her. The outer camera screen feed flips on over the window, revealing a mass of aliens decked in some sort of colorful, flowing garb - most likely the Androgians - awaiting their arrival.

 

Lance gives a catcall as he surveys what he can make out of the figures eagerly, slinking closer towards the screen and eyeing them like a kid in a candy shop. He’s mildly aware of Keith’s hot gaze on him again, but he lets it go this time, because as he’s told himself, he’s going to deal with and erase these dumb gay feelings once and for all.

 

The figures appear to be mostly tall and slim, skin a strikingly silverish color, with a sort of elegance to the way they hold themselves. In unison, they throw up collective waves in greeting, giving the impression of a strangely choreographed tsunami from the distance the ship is still at.

 

“...And this hot stuff is about to get into that hot stuff, hell yeah, son!”

 

Lance’s good mood is only disturbed by the sharp pain shooting up his spine when Shiro’s hand meets the back of his head with a reprimanding hiss of ‘ _Lance_ ’.

  


* * *

  


As Allura addresses the leader of the Androgians upon landing in order to investigate what issues they may be having, the paladins were left to observe their new surroundings by themselves.

Lance automatically pairs up with Hunk, leaving with him before Keith can even get the idea to maybe follow them. Coran trails after them, spouting bits and pieces of information about the Androgians as they walk through the town.

 

Lance isn’t sure what Pidge and Shiro are up to, because he’s too busy focusing on the naturally gorgeous beauties in front of him. This is even better than he originally thought it would be.

 

The majority of the Androgians tower over them, the shortest of the adults being at least seven or eight feet tall. The silver inflection of their skin looks even more breathtaking up close, tinting at a metallic-esque color that reflects wonderfully with the dueling suns in the sky. Thin and lanky, they walk around with perfect posture and bare feet, bearing a stunning variety of garments that look like robes, which have cascading amounts of all the colors of the rainbow on them, as if a child had spattered paint over all of them haphazardly.

 

Their cheeks were painted with purple tattoos of a circle with a line pointing off the top of it, ending in an ‘x’ shape on each one, and the only thing differing between them limb-wise with humans was that they all had an unblinking third eye in the center of their foreheads (though the pupils in them did shift and follow them disturbingly as they walked past) and no ears.

 

There is only one thing Lance can’t quite figure out as he surveys them, feeling like he could fall in love with any one of them at any given time.

 

He’s not sure what distinguishes the sexes here. All of them had, more or less, the same amount of hip curvature to rounded ass ratio. Despite a lot of them being on a “femininely” curvier side, none of them seemed to have breasts, but only lean muscled chests. They had no facial hair - in fact, not even eyebrows or eyelashes - and for the most part they all wore their hair waist long, silky black strands tied tightly back with colorful bows and arranged in various styles.

 

On top of that, because of their height, none of them could said to be petite by any means, excepting maybe the children who were running around laughing and playing - and even then, the shortest was still much taller than Pidge. That meant no small hands or feet. They had broad shoulders, muscular arms and legs, almond shaped eyes, and were going about varied tasks in the small village where they lived in simple grass huts. Some were cooking, some cleaning, some skinning weird looking animals, some building things or hauling heavy materials.

 

“Man,” Lance says under his breath to Hunk, covering a hand over his mouth so that none of the Androgians can hear him (judging that they _could_ even hear him, considering they have no ears to speak of). “This is bizarre. Which ones are even the chicks? How am I supposed to know who to start hitting on?”

 

Hunk shrugs and rubs a grumbling stomach. “I don’t know, dude. All I care about is whether they can cook a filling, delicious meal.”

 

A nearby Androgian with hair pulled into a high bun by a purple and pink bow turns from their work on weaving a basket to look at them, sending shivers up Lance’s spine as the third eye on its forehead opens wide, pupil a bright pink color. Forgetting that Coran was right behind them, Lance jolts when he speaks up as well.

 

“Ah, what a wonderful race the Androgians are! We’ve had a strong alliance with them for…” Coran looks up to the sky, calculating in his head. “Well, I suppose these past ten thousand years don’t really count, do they, since they probably assumed all Alteans were dead, huh?”

 

Hunk and Lance exchange a look. “Naw, probably not,” Hunk settles on saying.

 

Coran waves a hand in the air. “No matter! They are a peaceful people who we’ve had a strong alliance with for nearly five hundred years before...you know. Anyway, I couldn’t help but overhear your issue with them, Lance.”

 

Coran speaks a little too loudly for Lance’s liking, and he looks around uneasily as several more Androgians turn to stare at them.

 

“Uh, Coran, maybe now is not the time…” Lance mutters, running into Hunk’s back, who’s suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. A large crowd of Androgians were now surrounding them, blocking the cobblestone pathway they’d been walking down. Just barely tall enough to see past the mass of bodies, Lance spots rover hovering a couple hundred feet away, indicating Pidge as probably heading towards them, though he definitely can’t see her.

 

_‘Pray tell, what issue do you have with us, outsider?’_

 

_‘Who are these outsiders? They are not of Altean descent.’_

 

_‘What strange faces they have!’_

 

_‘Are these the Alteans new pets? They are so small. Do you think this has something to do with the prophecy?’_

 

_‘Hikmath, what’s an all-tay-uhn? Can we eat it?’_

 

Lance stumbles farther back right as Hunk lets out a high pitched scream. It’s not so much the words as much as the fact that no Androgian actually spoke out loud.

 

No, the words Lance interprets seem to feed straight into his mind, and not through his ears.

 

“Holy shit, did you all hear that too?” Hunk babbles, digging a finger into his ear. Coran laughs jovially right as Pidge pushes her way through the crowd.

 

“Oh, there you all are, Allura has been looking for--”

 

She stops abruptly when she notices the mob that has gathered around the three of them. One Androgian, slightly shorter and probably younger, tugs on the bottom of Lance’s jacket with curious, wide eyes. With his own girlish scream tearing from his lips, Lance jumps back so far he’s practically in Hunk’s arms.

 

_‘Look, Duhal, they wear such silly things.’_

 

A tall Androgian with a bright blue robe and multi-colored sash gently leads away the younger one, nodding their head towards them in recognition.

 

_‘Please excuse me, my child has never seen outsiders before. Do not judge them too harshly.’_

 

Having a hard time wrapping his head around, well...the strange telepathic like way the words are wrapping directly around his brain, Lance chokes out in a strained voice, “I, uh, w-what...how are you...talking...c-can you even hear me?” His face pales as he claps worried hands over the top of his head, wondering if maybe that could cause a barrier to whatever this is. “You c-can’t read my thoughts, can you?!”

 

The Androgian named Duhal tilts their head. _‘Mind-reading? Good heavens, no. We are not so advanced for that. And of course, I can hear you just fine.’_

 

Lance relaxes, relieved that no one can delve into the terribly dirty thoughts he’s been having as of late. Catching himself before he insensitively blurts out ‘hearing me with what, exactly’, he shuffles in place, thoughts stupidly wandering to what Keith might be up to just then.

 

“I’m still feeling a little violated,” Hunk admits, rubbing at his arm. Pidge shakes her head, sighing.

 

“If you all had been listening to Allura, or maybe even Coran for once, you’d have already known about this,” she states matter-of-factly, adjusting her glasses. A few other smaller Androgians hang off of Rover, who’s flying them around in circles, much to the excited approval of the crowd.

 

“Fine, well, we’re listening now, shorty,” Lance huffs, crossing his arms.

 

Even though they can’t read minds, the whole ordeal is still making him uneasy. The only voice he’s ever heard in his head before is the nagging ghost of the voice of his mother that often reprimanded him whenever he did something particularly gross that he knew she wouldn’t approve of him doing (such as leaving his dirty socks everywhere on the ship, or never cleaning up his plate after a meal).

 

Pidge is about to open her mouth when Coran interjects, always the one excited to reveal new information. “That’s just what I was about to explain! Androgians communicate by a highly superintelligent form of brainwave patterns! Though they have mouths, they lack vocal cords, and only use them for consuming sustenance. This is where things really get interesting--”

 

“Their third eye evolved for the purpose of communicating directly into the mind, as a defense mechanism against intruders. If they developed any physical language, such as something similar to sign language on Earth, it could have been easily learned. With brainwave patterns, they can broadcast their thoughts directly onto others, and also choose exactly who gets to hear certain thoughts. So if people from other planets try to exploit them, they can be fooled into thinking the entire race of Androgians is mute or too dumb to have a language, and therefore, not worth their time in extracting information from,” Pidge cuts off a disappointed looking Coran, rambling in seemingly one breath. “Seriously, guys, we have shit to do. Get over it and let’s go.”

 

“Whoah, cool. Good enough for me, I guess.” Hunk scratches his head. As his stomach rumbles again, he bows to the crowd awkwardly. “Thanks for choosing me to communicate with your, uh, brain wave thingies? I will return later when hopefully you guys will be eating. Nice to meet you, gotta run.”

 

Though several Androgians frown at his words, one responds politefully, ‘ _Nice to meet you, too, short ones.’_

 

Lance rolls his eyes. “Alright, you’ve more than made your point, Pidge. Let’s get this over with so I can get it on with one of these fine, beautiful young things.” He raises an eyebrow suggestively and bats his eyes at one of the nearby Androgians as he passes them - one who is nearly two whole feet taller than him with high cheekbones, purple irises, and shorter and curlier hair than most of them, which rests around the nape of its neck in ringlets. They’re wearing a pink and red robe, with a flowing golden sash that crisscrosses over its flat but muscular chest, wraps across its tiny waist, and accentuates a deeper and wider curve to its hips than the others. Their cheeks flush a metallic sort of red at Lance’s flirtations.

 

Lance doesn’t really like the way Pidge starts laughing raucously loud at him just then.

 

Following Hunk and Pidge as the crowd parts and lets them through, Coran breaks out of his sulking as he remembers what he was about to tell Lance before they were interrupted.

 

“Oh, before I forget! I think I can answer your question from earlier, Lance, on your concerns about the roles of males and females on this planet.” Coran dusts imaginary dirt from his shirt, sticking a prideful chin into the air. “I’m pretty knowledgeable about this stuff, you know.”

 

“Oh yeah?” Lance perks up, though confusingly he’s found himself batting eyes at nearly every Androgian he’s stumbled by at this point. “I don’t know, I think I figured out which ones are the babes.” He points a finger gun towards another Androgian, who giggles a low pitched sound into his mind. Lance gulps. “Um, on second thought, maybe not…”

 

“Balderdash, there’s no way you would be able to distinguish that,” Coran says, striding fast to catch up with Lance.

 

“Haven’t you ever taken Latin, Lance? Come on now, I had this figured out the second Allura told us their name,” Pidge calls to him tauntingly from the front of their line.

 

“Why the hell does knowing Latin matter in space?” Lance shoots back, stuffing his hands into his pockets and frowning. He has a feeling he’s not going to like what’s coming next.

 

“See, the thing is - there are no set roles! Androgians are, in nature, androgynous,” Coran explains excitedly. “They do not differentiate between sex or gender,  having both characteristics of each, or none at all! They are an egalitarian society, and they reproduce asexually. Fascinating stuff! Which is why they make for such great alliances, their entire society is far ahead if only for the fact they have eliminated all issues that come with gender and sex division that is often the downfall of many cultures!”

 

“Oh,” Lance groans, instantly turning away from an Androgian whom he’s just kissed the hand of, beyond embarrassed and wondering if this planet can get any weirder. “Fuck me.”

 

“Did you not just hear Coran, man?” Hunk says. “I don’t think they _can_ fuck you.” He turns to Coran to confirm it, unsure. “Right?”

 

“Right, but also wrong,” Coran starts again, “Reproduction and sexual activity is not necessarily mutually exclusive. It’s funny you should say that, because--”

 

“Aghhhh!!” Lance yells, pulling at his hair and startling several nearby Androgians, Hunk, and Coran in the process. He can’t believe this. No gender? No sexual difference at all? _Who_ is he supposed to hit on then?! _How_ is he supposed to hit on any of them?! A horrifying realization dawns on him.

 

What does it mean, exactly, now that he _already has_?

 

“It’s a touchy subject for him, Coran,” Pidge says around a giggle. “Best to just let him be for right now while his primitive brain struggles to wrap his head around it all.”

 

“Right, of course. I forget how it could be a difficult concept for you semi-evolved Earthlings. Wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself now, Lance!”

 

Coran claps a hand onto his shoulder, not meaning it in nearly as condescending a way as Pidge surely is, and yet, Lance wants to die for what is probably the millionth time this week.

  


* * *

 

  


“Paladins, I would like you all to meet Imani, the leader of the Androgians. They will be explaining your specific task in more detail.”

 

Back by the ship, everyone gathers around Allura as she talks, gesturing to an almost eight foot tall Androgian with shoulder length hair pulled into two, plaited low ponytails, wearing an uncharacteristically plain brown robe.

 

Keith hangs back away from the others like he had on the ship, wanting nothing more than to get to the task at hand to keep his mind preoccupied with something other than thinking about his current annoyance with Lance, or to somehow more distracting things, like landing in strange positions in boiling training rooms.

 

 _‘It’s a pleasure,’_ Imani broadcasts to them, a shaky, quiet trill, _‘Um, defenders of the universe, correct?’_

 

Allura nods, smiling. Hunk runs a bashful hand over the back of his neck. “Well, that’s a pretty fancy title, but...ha...yeah…I guess you could say we are.”

 

“Defenders of the universe, defenders at your service, anytime, anyplace! And personally defenders of...um, whatever it is…you may need, your...silvery-ness?”

 

Lance spreads his arms out haughtily as he talks, but then becomes less confident as the sentence goes on. By the time he gets to the end, he’s looking around at everyone as if desperately seeking backup.

 

Honestly, does he ever plan out what he’s about to say, or does bullshit just get increasingly worse as it drips out of his mouth?

 

Pidge and Shiro sigh in exasperated unison nearby. Imani ignores their outbursts, clearly already too anxious speaking to a crowd of strangers to care about their awkwardness as well.

 

 _‘Alright. I am going to be frank with you, as the Alteans have always been frank with us. Or, at least, as my ancestors have written about them being frank with us.’_ Imani shifts from one foot to the next, third pupil looking off to the side as the others stay disturbingly focused on them.

 

Keith tilts his head, feeling even more empathetic with them. The Androgians, though elegant and seemingly prim and proper, aren’t very good at public speaking at all. He wonders just how long it has been since they had proper contact with anyone outside their own race. An unsettling feeling sets low in his stomach as he hopes that the Galra have not had the opportunity to exploit these gentle people yet.

 

 _‘We have had an arrangement with the Gods of our planet for as far back as we can recall. Ancient scripts and rituals have confirmed that it has always been this way. However, recently there seems to be some trouble.’_ Imani’s hands settle with readjusting the nondescript sash of their robe nervously. _‘As per our arrangement, our Gods prefer to play a certain...I think you all would refer to it as being called a ‘game’?’_

 

They look back towards Allura again for reassurance. Allura, patience apparently waning with how long it’s taking for Imani to get down to business, interjects to help move it along faster. For that, Keith is thankful. He’s had enough of awkward encounters to last him several lifetimes at this point, no need to add more to that list.

 

“The Androgian’s Gods have full control and access to their food supply, which they only release enough rations at a time for approximately as long as one of your Earth years,” Allura explains, tone controlled and impressively level, neither descending into condescension or rising into anger. “Usually they have to work through a series of codes and puzzles to win over their God’s approval enough to deserve access to their goods. They put out a distress signal because, for some reason or other, their Gods have decided to increase the level of difficulty of the code for this year’s access.”

 

 _‘Yes, this is where you all come in,’_ Imani adds abruptly, suddenly finding their voice. The sound they broadcast is much harsher than before, grating painfully against Keith’s skull. Pidge and Lance cringe in unison with him as the anger of their voice drags fingernails straight into the chalkboard of their brains. _‘Even though we have been nothing but prompt and accurate with our responses these past several millennia, we were given no reprieve when our designated codebreakers got into a terrible tragic accident right before the new code was put out to us.’_

 

Keith was definitely prepared for a strange story right after these suspicious ‘Gods’ were mentioned, but maybe not fully prepared for something this devastating and dire. There’s  something about the whole thing that doesn’t sit right with him at all. Glancing around at his fellow paladins, he can tell he’s definitely not the only one thinking this. Even Lance has an eyebrow raised and isn’t making a move to open his mouth.

 

_‘Though we have codebreakers in training, they are too young to break this level of difficulty. The Gods cannot be reasoned with, we cannot even contact them. Our punishment is clear, and we have been suffering greatly because of it. Portions of what we had leftover from last year have been rationed, but our people consume much more than the average Altean or...ah…’_

 

Imani roves all three eyes over them. “Humans?” Keith suggests.

 

_‘Yes, that thing. We are a pretty...physically active species. Assuming you all eat more or less as much as an Altean does…’_

 

“What?” Hunk says as everyone’s eyes land presumptuously on him. “Coran’s the one who ate the rest of our food goo the other day, don’t look at me.”

 

“It’s true, I was famished,” Coran backs him up. Shiro shakes his head.

 

“Guys, focus. We need to help the Androgians out. It’s our duty here, especially since they are putting themselves doubly at risk by contacting us.”

 

Allura makes a slicing motion of her neck, trying to signal from behind Imani’s turned back for Shiro to be quiet.

 

Imani stiffens, fingers trembling over their ministrations adjusting their sash. _‘We...are?’_

 

“Um,” Shiro mutters, realizing that he’d been caught up and forgotten that Imani was right there to hear his reprimand as well. “Wait, no, I didn’t...mean it like that…”

 

“Of course you aren’t!” Allura quickly covers, slinging an arm around Imani’s shoulders, which seems to instantly relax them. “You are completely, 100% safe.”

 

Allura gives a withering glare at Shiro, and Keith is sure as hell glad he’s not on the receiving end of it. “We are here to help, and will assist you by any means possible.”

 

After a few other reassurances that they would be in no added danger, several ticks of asides in which Allura appeared to be berating a rather red-faced looking Shiro, and splitting up their respective responsibilities into groups, Keith was starting to feel a little better than he had been before they landed.

 

That was, until Allura assigned him, Pidge, and Lance in a group together.

 

“Shiro and I will take charge of handing out food to the Androgians and consulting with Imani about things. Hunk and Coran, you’ll be looking for any weakened or sick Androgians who look like they need some time in the healing pod, and also in charge of working with some of the top engineers of the town to see what, if any, improvements can be made to their quality of life in the meantime while we try to crack the code.” She turns to Keith, and he already knows the dread of what’s coming next. “Keith! I’d like for you to pair up with Pidge and Lance. Ahmeeth here, head of the codebreakers in-training team, has considered you three as most fitting for helping them with their job.”

 

She winks at them, particular aimed towards Pidge for whatever reason. Pidge’s face quickly morphs into one of distaste. Keith narrows his eyes as Lance squeaks out a predictable protest.

 

 _‘Uh, yes, I am Ahmeeth,’_ a gangling Androgian with a rounded face, one long french braid, and bright blue eyes steps out from the crowd. They have a series of what must be hundreds of different colored bangles jingling around their wrists, sounding much like thousands of coins falling like an endless waterfall. _‘And I definitely was in no way setup to agree to this.’_

  
  


* * *

 

  


“I don’t really understand why we have to wear these,” Keith pouts, picking at the folds of his sash disgruntledly. Imani insisted they wear their traditional garb as they worked, but Keith finds the fact Allura allowed that at all to be in severely poor taste. If they were to get into an altercation or needed to fight, they were now officially defenseless.

 

Pidge jabs an elbow sharply into his side. “I think they are very nice, Ahmeeth. Pretty, and definitely much more comfortable than our suits,” Pidge says, covering up the groan of Keith’s following ‘ow’ with flattery.

 

 _‘No, they really aren’t,’_ Ahmeeth broadcasts to them in a squeaky, high pitched tone, looking over their own multicolored garb flippantly, _‘That cute red one is right. They’re kind of lame. Really quite tacky and traditional as hell.’_

 

It takes a second for Keith to realize that by ‘cute red one’, Ahmeeth meant him. Wrinkling his nose, he bows his embarrassed face, wondering what the others are thinking if they’d caught that as well.

 

“You seem...different than the others, dude. Are you like the alien equivalent of a teenager?” Lance asks, genuinely interested.

 

Ahmeeth frowns, turning back to look at Lance, their third eye expanding to twice its normal size. Keith has gotten the impression this happens whenever one of them is thinking particularly hard about something.

 

 _‘Is that like a type of food?’_ Ahmeeth hums, rubbing their stomach. _‘I’m so famished, I could probably go for about two teenagers right now then.’_

 

“...Never mind,” Lance sighs, and silence falls over them again.

 

As per their paladin colors, the Androgians fitted them with the closest garbs they could find that reflected their own ‘traditional garb’ - Pidge was in a pale green robe with a widely looped yellow belt (which had to be wrapped around her many times in order just to fit onto her small frame), Keith was clad in a dark red and gold number with a satin sash draped over one shoulder, and Lance was in a sky blue one with a double black velvety looking sash, crossed in an ‘x’ over his back. Keith could only assume that Hunk and Shiro were given the same treatment.

 

As they follow Ahmeeth up a hill set away from the village, Keith finds that he’s having trouble focusing on anything other than the way the shining black sash ripples and folds with the slinking movement of Lance, who’s in front of him naturally pretending like he doesn’t exist.

 

For all his lumbering around, slouching and dragging his feet, Lance’s stride is surprisingly fluid and gait strong, traipsing up over exposed roots and moving along the steep hill seamlessly, with the lightest step Keith’s ever seen him use before.

 

Halfway through pretending he didn’t just spend the last 5 minutes of silence watching Lance walk, Ahmeeth stops them at the entrance to a towering cave, sectioned off by the most technological device they’ve seen in the entire time since they set foot off the ship. It’s a massive steel door, stretching thousands of feet above them and equally about as wide. Adorned with many multicolored blinking lights, oddly enough, a control panel sits on a tall beam right in front of it.

 

 _‘This is as far as we can go. Our food source lies right beyond the gate, but only past codebreakers have been able to cross its threshold,’_ Ahmeeth gives the equivalent of a raspy sigh, _‘And even then, they are usually killed off or rendered blind for what they find beyond. Some say it is because the Gods are too much for our small brains to comprehend and see directly.’_

 

Pidge stares, much like the rest of them, in wonder at the truly science fiction level of architecture before her. Despite the grim atmosphere, her smile grows only wider at the sight.

 

 _‘However,’_ Ahmeeth continues, setting down the backpack they had slung over their shoulder, dumping scrolls of parchment and various tools on the ground, _‘I say it is because they are cowards, witless and merciless fools who punish us for no other reason than their own sick and twisted amusement.’_

 

Ahmeeth spits at the foot of the gate, all eyes ablaze with fury.

 

“Yeah that...sounds rough, buddy. So, uh,” Lance looks between Pidge and Ahmeeth, obviously going to great lengths to avoid eye contact with Keith. “You brought us here to try to figure out and enter the code, right? Let’s get to it I guess.”

 

Booming laughter has all three of them reeling back at how raucously loud laughter straight into your brain feels much like being bludgeoned over the head by a large amount of bricks.

 

_‘Ha, good one. No, not really. Well, that is what your leader wished, but...to be honest, it is a lost cause, humans. Alas, we are all fucked.’_

 

Finally, Lance looks his way, as does Pidge. They share similar looks of uncomfortable shock.

 

Ahmeeth turns from them, facing the dueling sunset with their hands clasped behind their back. _‘No, I brought you all here to check out the neat sunset. It’s cool, right?’_

 

“Do you...really think it’s hopeless to even try?” Keith whispers quietly after a few palpable, tensely silent moments. He’s aware of Lance staring at him. Pidge ignores them as her attention is drawn elsewhere, finely examining the control panel with mounting interest and tapping at its blinking surface curiously.

 

 _‘Yes, I do,’_ ‘says’ Ahmeeth, bending awkwardly at the back to stare at them upside down. They twist the long sleeve of the cloth of their robe absently around their wrist in a bored fashion, _‘In short, our Gods are dicks.’_

 

“Ah,” Keith says with a bit of a sigh, shaking hair away from his face. His gaze drags over and up, until it’s settled unmistakingly on Lance, so he can properly spit venom in his direction. If Ahmeeth is going to waste their time with nonsense, then he doesn’t see why he can’t waste some more time being petty. “I can relate to that myself, terribly sorry.”

 

Right as Ahmeeth assures him that really, it’s no big deal, because again, the Gods are truly the biggest assholes they have ever encountered, Lance springs back to his usual self, yelling indignantly, “What the hell are you looking at me for again?! Are you trying to say what I think you’re trying to say?!”

 

Keith plasters on the most condescending glare he can manage. “Maybe I am. What of it?”

 

“What of it?!” Lance’s voice cracks, ticking off reasons on his fingers. “For one, you’re staring at me, as usual, and that’s annoying!” Lance gets increasingly worse at speaking in any sort of great come back, as per his own usual. “That’s annoying, Keith! It’s not cool, okay, it’s irritating! Secondly, quit calling me names. What did I ever do to you to deserve that?!”

 

Keith lets his mouth hang open. He wants to kick Lance right in his stupid, obnoxious gut. “What! Are you kidding me? Do you seriously even need me to get into that?”

 

Pidge instantly slaps a hand over her mouth to staunch some of the laughter that tumbles out. She doesn’t catch it fast enough, and Keith shifts some of his anger her way. “Huh, but aren’t you technically insinuating that he’s also a God, Keith?”

 

“No way! I’m insinuating that he’s a _dick_ , because he is!”

 

Keith has never hated children more than he does in that moment. Balling his hands into fists, he falls into a fighting stance before he can stop himself, and Lance pulls closer, as if maybe considering that he should throw a punch as well. However, instead, Lance pauses and throws a horrified looking death glare towards Pidge, despite moving intimidatingly nearer to Keith.

 

“Don’t be gross, Pidge,” Lance says carefully, tone low and carrying an undercurrent of a warning with it.

 

Keith finds that particular word choice interesting, though in this situation, he annoyingly thinks he can agree with Lance for once about that. Anyone or anything considering Lance godly in any way, shape, or form obviously would have some sort of screw loose. What would he even be the God of, anyway? Belligerance, bad flirting techniques, and poor life choices?

 

Pidge throws her hands up in a mock form of surrender combined with a casual shrug. “I’m just saying, it could _go both ways_.”

 

Her eyes are settled not on Keith, but oddly on Lance when she states that. Keith feels a resurgence of annoyance - how dare she take his obvious insult for anything more than it was. He’s not about to throw compliments Lance’s way after how he’s been treating him lately!

 

Lance looks like he’s having similar thoughts, his face flushing a deeper red and body stiffening at her words. He takes a wide step back from Keith as if he’s just realized Keith has some sort of highly contagious disease. He pivots fully to face Pidge, jabbing a finger into the air above her.

 

“You take that back, you little gremlin! It c-can’t go both ways, because...because...then it wouldn’t be an insult, and Keith was insulting me! Because uh, why would he say something like that?” Lance stammers. Ambling into a slightly different direction, he cups his chin as he apparently reconsiders that for a moment. “Well, I mean, I do have the body and mind of a God, that’s a pretty astute observation…” He shakes his head of wherever his thoughts seem to have drifted. “Wait! No! There’s no going both ways about it! This is a one-way street, Pidge! Linear direction, we’re talking here! It’s either one or the other! You can’t insult and simultaneously compliment, doesn’t work like that, nope!”

 

Keith tilts his head curiously. He didn’t expect his insult to be defended, of all things, when he was just trying to get a rise out of Lance in the first place. Not being able to share a confused look with one of his other team members, he settles on shooting one at Ahmeeth, who has been quietly observing the argument without interjecting. They look uncomfortable, but a firm, unnerving smile continues to perk up their lips.

 

Pidge sighs, pulling off her glasses and nonchalantly cleaning them with the corner of her garment. She looks about as tired as Lance has been lately in that moment. “It doesn’t _have_ to be only one or the other, Lance. It _can_ be both, or sometimes even neither.” She cakes on a smile much sweeter than Keith thinks look natural coming from her. “But in this case? Definitely both. Or maybe even more than that...”

 

“You’re wrong, Pidge,” Lance insists, arms flailing much like they did when he tried to get Keith to leave the training room the other day. “It was only meant to be taken _one way_!”

 

Alright, color him officially confused. Keith can’t quite wrap his head around what’s going on in this conversation anymore, and that awkward feeling of being left out, just like he has been so much lately, comes back in full force. His fingers tangle in the loops of the brilliantly red sash angrily. Well, he’s not going to stand for this treatment today.

 

“Pidge.”

 

They both turn around at the sound of Keith’s voice, as if surprised by the fact they find him still standing there. Fire burns in his veins.

 

“I meant he’s a dick, because he’s been nothing but a dick to me lately. I didn’t mean he was a God, too,” Keith finds his voice interjecting quietly and firmly, interrupting whatever sort of inside joke is going on between his fellow paladins. “Though I suppose, if you’re saying he’s a God in the sense of when God’s are being assholes and smiting down people left and right, oppressing them and using their power for cruelty like the Androgian’s Gods, then yeah.” Lance’s face and hand falls, Pidge’s smirk wipes away. “Yeah, I’d say he’s a God alright.”

 

Met with only silence as the two stare at him, Keith takes the opportunity to continue.

 

“I’ll see you guys later, I’m going to actually do my job and help Ahmeeth with the code here.”

 

Ahmeeth shrugs, shaking their hand in a so-so way. _‘It’s not a big deal, I really don’t think it can be done. Nothing more, nothing less to do now than to wait for the sweet, sweet release of death, you know? At least then we’ll be free.’_

 

Keith ignores their shitty apathetic ambivalence, grabbing their hand and heading back down the trail to maybe find someone more suitable for the job who might actually help them. He says one last thing before he turns his back on them completely, because fuck this, and fuck them.

 

“Just leave me the fuck alone, at least until we’re back on the ship, okay?”

 

* * *

  


“Who the hell does he think he is, anyway? What gives him the right to act like that, huh?”

 

“Lance.”

 

“I mean, I guess he did make some ‘okay’ points here and there, but seriously.” Lance continues pacing back and forth, much to the displeasure of Pidge, who’s on the ground trying to work out the mechanism of the steel door sealing off the mountain entrance. If only she could concentrate more, they might not even need that stupid code, and then they could…

 

“The fuck has climbed into his mullet lately, am I right?” Lance spits, annoying her more and more by the second. She regrets with every fiber of her being that she lent Rover to Hunk and Coran to help with their scouting.

 

“Lance, plea--”

 

“It’s like...just because it’s so long and pretty, it doesn’t give him the right to prance around here acting like he owns the fucking place!”

 

“Lance! Quit being gay about Keith, and either help me with this, or fuck off already!”

 

Lance jumps as if he didn’t realize he wasn’t alone, and Pidge doesn’t remove her eyes from the bunch of wires in her hands to bother looking at his most likely frazzled face.

 

“W-what? Me, being gay about Keith? W-well, I never--”

 

“Yes, you never admit you have a hard-on for Keith, and yet, we all know. Congratulations on your stupid hormones. Look, pass me the wrench, will you?”

 

But Lance doesn’t pass her the wrench, because he’s fucking Lance, and once he’s gotten started on some tangent, she’s learned it’s futile trying to get him to settle down. She sighs heavily as he goes on to babble for a few more minutes, mostly incoherently, and with a few vehement explanations about why Keith’s ass in particular is anything but attractive. She wishes she had brought ear plugs.

 

Eventually, he settles on some words that have her attention actually grabbed for once. “That’s it, I’m so tired of this! You know what? I’m not going to put up with this anymore!” He punches at a dead branch of a tree in front of him, which comes flying back at him and hits him in the face. Even more disgruntled than before, he finally tosses the wrench her way without really looking at where it’s going to land. Unfortunately, he also does it with so much force that she has to duck to avoid getting hit with it.

 

“Hey, watch it!”

 

“Shit!” Lance says, covering his mouth in shock and drawing closer to her. “Shit, I didn’t mean that Pidge, are you okay?”

 

“Ugh! Just...go chill out somewhere! You’re driving me nuts, dude!” Pidge groans. “No wonder Keith doesn’t want to be around you - you’re absolutely miserable to, well, be around.”

 

Lance doesn’t respond to that as she huffs, picks up the wrench, and starts working at one of the twisted mass of bolts she’s been facing from the inner workings of the control panel. Given the gift of momentary silence, she decides to directly address the problem more. Her previous plan might not have worked out, but that doesn’t mean she’s out of cards just yet.

 

“You know,” she starts carefully, drawing out the syllables like she’s testing out a fine glass of wine between her lips. “You’re never going to get laid by him at this rate if you keep acting like such an insufferable douche. Just FYI, that’s kind of a turn-off to most people.”

 

Lance’s look of concern drops, offense clearly spreading to take its place.  


“That’s just it, I don’t want to get laid by Keith! I definitely wouldn’t want him to touch me with those...stupid, smooth gloved hands, never! I never, I w-wouldn’t--” Lance stumbles back, eyebrows tightly drawn, mouth seeping belligerence. “And I’m, I’m gonna prove it, okay?! I’m gonna prove it right now by winning over one of those Androgians instead, got it? So then you can maybe all leave me alone!” Lance stomps a few times, the crunching of dead leaves crackling under his boots indicating him moving. When he shouts back, his voice is much more distant than before. “Also, _FYI_ , no one says ‘FYI’ anymore, Pidge!”

 

She’s about to say how that won’t prove anything, that that’s the dumbest plan of denial if she’s ever heard one, that that also just proves his whole reason for denial is a moot point if gender is what he’s stuck on in the first place, but Lance is already bounding away.

 

Maybe Hunk was right. Maybe she shouldn’t have meddled. Maybe Lance does need to make a complete ass of himself before he really gets anywhere, just as he usually does.

 

But, when Keith shows up a few minutes later (minus Ahmeeth, and who knows what happened there), abashedly apologizing for storming off earlier and asking her if she needs his help with anything, she realizes she hasn’t meddled nearly enough to be satisfied yet.

 

So she twists away from her work and stands, stretches towards the sky, tells a sulking Keith, “Yeah, actually I do need your help.”  

 

And she points him into the direction that Lance ran off to, below the hill towards the edge of the village where the Androgians appear to be gathering to eat. Both her and Keith follow where her finger is pointing, to where the shorter figure indicating Lance can clearly be seen sidling up next to some gangling Androgian wrapped in pink and red robes with a glittering, golden sash.

 

“I sent Lance on a mission to gather some things for me, but it seems he’s gotten...distracted.”

 

She covers a giggle by pretending to cough as she sees a flicker of some emotion on Keith’s face. It isn’t there long enough to read what it is exactly, but there’s an unmistakeable widening of his eyes, and his frown deepens like the chasm of a great canyon.

 

“Would you mind getting him? He really shouldn’t be flirting on the job, and I don’t want to get Shiro or Allura involved.” She tries her best impression of sounding forlorn. “Poor guy’s been having a hard enough time as it is, wouldn’t want him to get into any serious trouble, yeah?”

 

“Uh,” Keith says, features pensive, never moving his gaze from the colorful figures in the distance. “Sure? I, um. I guess I can do that, yeah.”

 

“Thanks, Keith, I owe you one!”

 

She gives him a small push on his back, and as he begins to walk stiffly away at the provocation, she sighs in relief. Facing the steel door again, her entire being falls into one of set determination.

 

“Alright, you little bitch ass gate thing, listen up!”

 

Fists up, she gives it a hard kick with the steel toe of her boot, ignoring the heavy vibration of impact that follows. She cracks her neck before flopping back down to the mess of the control panel, shaking her fingers wildly like the hands of some evil conductor.

 

“Now that we’re alone, I’m going to fucking lay you flat."  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, Lemon here, and back in action with more trash than ever! I missed you all! But man, what a treat getting two Moth chapters in a row, amirite?? Anyway, introducing the first planet mission! The overall plan is to have the team travel to four different planets total, and there will be two chapters taken to focus on each one (one by me, and one by Moth).
> 
> You might be wondering, 'So why/how the fuck do the Androgians have a planet name originating in Latin?' Well...that's a curious story for another time, folks...(Maybe you should ask Coran, he seems to be pretty knowledgeable about these things)
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed this week's craziness! See ya in another two weeks <3


	7. Perks of Being a Paladin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A crisis, an explosion, and the cockblock to end all cockblocks.

Keith is familiar with the feeling of a dozen eyes watching him when he enters a room. He’s practiced staying stoic in the face of strangers’ judgment, their awe, their complete and utter inability to keep their snotty comments about his hair or his clothing to themselves each time that he happens to stumble upon a crowd. He’d grown used to so many people watching him at the Garrison — sizing him up, comparing themselves to him, wondering what they might need to do to usurp him as the favorite in order to climb the ranks to the top. 

That’s the sort of thing that he knows how to deal with: judgement, jealousy, dislike, and maybe even hatred. The thick layer of numbness surrounding his heart has granted him with the unique ability not to care at all about what anyone might think about him. His focused nature has allowed him to shrug off any insults hurled his way if they in no manner inhibit him from completing whichever mission he’s outlined for himself. Negativity is easy. It’s natural. It’s a part of becoming the best and the strongest that is woven so deeply into his life that he doesn’t know if he’d understand how to function without at least one person voicing their dislike for him constantly. 

And maybe that’s what’s throwing him off. Maybe that’s why he hesitates as he reaches the throng of Androgians surrounding Lance. Their eyes turn to him, roving from his feet to his face, drinking in the light playing against his space suit and the firm frown stretching his lips — but there isn’t judgement there. There are no signs of dislike. They take him in, they flick their gazes away. They’re disinterested the moment that Lance opens his mouth and says something so stupid that Keith almost turns around and walks in the opposite direction, if only so the Androgians don’t associate them with each other.

“So,” Lance purrs, lids low as he reaches out a finger and draws it over one of the Androgian’s arms, “What exactly do you have going on…  _ down there _ ?”

Keith can feel his cheeks heating up despite how much he struggles to keep the emotion from his face. Is Lance  _ on something _ ? Is he sick? Is he really having such a difficult time on the ship that he’s forgotten the most general rules of human decency?!

The Androgian in question recoils slightly, and it’s uncomfortable to watch such strange, emotionless beings actually showing real distaste. Lance must feel it too, Keith thinks, despite the insufferable smile that has yet to leave his lips, as though he has no idea that he’s just said something that would be considered horribly offensive to anyone with half a brain. 

_ ‘I don’t exactly understand that question,’  _ the Androgian feeds into their thoughts, and Keith takes a moment to consider that maybe these words are being shared with him as a desperate cry for help,  _ ‘I am wearing the basic garb of my people. There is nothing “going on” with it at all.’ _

Before Keith can speak up and drag Lance away, he feels the warmth of someone else touching his arm. He twitches slightly, turning on his heel and craning his neck to gaze up into the eyes of another Androgian. This one is much taller than the one who Lance is harassing currently. Their cheekbones are slightly sharper, gaze deeper and darker as their eyes crinkle at the edges and their mouth turns upward in a smile. Two dark, violet eyes, set apart by a lighter lavender dilating in the center of their forehead. Glossy, inky hair curls under their ears, bangs hanging unevenly into their face. Their robe is similar to his, he notes — a deep red accented with sparkling gold. They look as familiar as an alien possibly can, but he can’t quite put his finger on why.

_ ‘I apologize for startling you,’ _ they tell him,  _ ‘I am Garmak. I could not help but notice that you are very attractive for a human.’ _

His face must be contorted in confusion, because his thoughts bubble with a musical laughter. He feels a little bit like a kid again, puzzled and slightly frustrated as he’d tried playing by himself on the playground while the little girls wouldn’t leave him alone. He’s never had time for this sort of thing. He doesn’t understand it, and he needs to get Lance out of here before he does any real damage. 

“U-uh, yeah, uh, thanks,” he replies, sneaking distracted glances Lance’s way and struggling to ignore the rumble of anger growing only more intense in his chest as he watches the way that Lance leans in ever-closer to the alien, ghosting his lips over the back of their hand.

_ ‘Do humans tell you this often?’ _ Gamak asks him, reaching forward and stroking the side of his face in a show that clues him in on this planet’s complete disregard for personal space,  _ ‘Are you considered to be beautiful on your home planet as well?’ _

Lance is kissing a trail up the Androgian’s arm, despite how obvious it is that they want nothing more than to yank their hand away. Keith feels the last strand of his resolve sever, anger coiling tight and hot in his gut as he tears his eyes from Lance and focuses all of his attention on Garmak’s charming, hypnotising smile.

“Not often at all,” he tells Garmak, smothering his rage, his embarrassment, the private emotions roiling restlessly inside of him, “and never anyone as attractive as you are.”

Lance’s stupid rambling quiets. Keith convinces himself that he doesn’t care about this at all. 

“You planet is really amazing,” he tells Garmak, who cocks their head to the side as their smile only widens, “Do you think you could give me a tour?”

He doesn’t look back to see what sort of look Lance might be giving him. He ignores the muffled sneer about wasting time while they should be working. He allows Garmak to wrap a long arm around his shoulders and usher him away, feeling the annoyance leave him like dust in his trail, festering in the angry curses that Lance calls out behind him. 

Lance can flirt and he can have fun, and Keith tells himself, not really sure who he’s trying to convince anymore, that he deserves to let loose sometimes as well. 

Maybe his idea of enjoyment comes in the form of imagining how stupid Lance must look gaping at his receding back, feeling defeated that Keith managed to win over an alien faster than he could make an ass out of himself. Maybe it’s freeing to forget about Lance altogether, to pretend that he’s the sort of person who can pick up aliens on planets far from home and feel comfortable enough in the arms of another being to truly connect with them. 

Maybe he just likes to think that Lance is feeling jealous. 

Or maybe Garmak is right at that level of cockiness that Keith likes in a person.

In the end, it doesn’t matter.

Androgia is breathtaking regardless.

 

* * *

 

Allura chats with Imani as she unloads rations from the ship, the smile on her face so bright and cheerful that it puts both of Androgia’s suns to shame.

To his credit, Shiro hasn’t been staring too much. Enough that he’s dropped a few too many pouches of space juice right through the fingers of the locals, but not enough that Allura seems to have caught on.

He’s distracted as some of the Androgians attempt to converse with him, feeling only slightly guilty about his spacey replies and frequent looks in the opposite direction, until someone feeds a sentence into his thoughts that stops him dead in his tracks.

_ ‘Your lover is truly gorgeous. Our elders used to tell the tales of Altean beauty when I was but a child, but I never could have imagined that I would have the honor of witnessing it myself.’ _

Shiro shuffles uncomfortably, unsure whether or not he should tell this Androgian that he and Allura are definitely not so intimate. He wonders if it really matters; in the grand scheme of things, if it might make things easier for her, as a beautiful woman on a foreign planet, if its people were to believe that she’s spoken for. Shaking away such troubling, albeit self-indulgent thoughts, he fakes a smile, nodding his head as he places a drink into the alien’s open hands.

“She is very gorgeous,” he tells them, “She’s also extremely intelligent, strong, capable, and caring. She is an amazing leader for our team.”

The grin beaming down at him is one of knowing, like a mother watching her child run and play for the first time. It sends tremors up and down his spine, a skittering of nerves roving over his skin and raising hairs over every place that they pass. He doesn’t like the way that their third eye settles on his face, the way that the pupil dilates, the uniform, pearly teeth peeking out between parted lips as they bow shallowly and turn away, but he forces himself to stay cool. 

Allura is telling Imani about their team, about the miracle of Voltron. 

“Shiro here,” she tells them, “is one of our most talented Paladins. Without him, I fear that our mission would not have been even an ounce as successful.”

The hand that settles against his shoulder sends even more electricity speeding over his skin, but unlike before, this is anything but unpleasant. Allura’s warm eyes turn to smile at him. Imani forces a nervous grin.

“We couldn’t have done any of it without you,” he tells her, and he tries not to think too much about the color that rises to her cheeks, “Don’t let Allura fool you. She’s the leader here, the best there is.”

He wonders how the rest of the team is fairing. He wonders if Lance and Keith have managed to put aside their differences and work together again; if Hunk and Coran are finding Androgians in need, if Pidge has put her intelligence to work and has somehow managed to figure out what all of the minds on this planet put together could not. He has faith in all of them, of course, but still....

With Hunk and Coran, with Pidge and Keith, things are usually easy enough to predict. They do their jobs. They don’t let their emotions get in the way. 

But Lance…

He tries not to think about it too much.

 

* * *

 

Another Androgian escorted to the ship, and Hunk decides that he needs to take a break for a minute.

“S-sorry dude,” he huffs, dragging a hand through sweaty hair as he lowers himself to sit on the nearest, flattest boulder, “I get that you’re super in shape from being in the Altean army or something, but some of us aren’t quite so lucky. I need to catch my breath.”

They’ve run back and forth from the ship to the village nearly a dozen times now, filling the pods, emptying the pods, fixing random problems and speaking to so many aliens that even his mind feels worn out.

Coran hums in understanding, choosing to pivot around on his heels and survey the trees around him as he waits for Hunk to catch his breath. He doesn’t seem to have as much as broken a sweat. He’s smiling slightly, surely relieved to find himself in a fairly familiar place after visiting so many different planets. Or maybe he’s just excited to finally step off of the ship and stretch his legs. Hunk isn’t sure why he always seems so chipper, but he decides that he needs to start doing that sort of thing too. Maybe this mission would pass quicker if he could fool himself into thinking that he’s actually enjoying it.

“You know,” Coran says suddenly, standing still but peeking at Hunk out of the corner of his eye, “I understand your need to distance yourself from the drama happening within the team, but I was wondering if you’d fancy a little bet.”

The mischievous tone of voice is what initially catches Hunk’s attention, and it takes him a moment to realize that Coran is referring to the situation with Keith and Lance. They’ve spoken about this frequently in the last couple of weeks. Granted, usually it’s Coran hastily talking Pidge out of breaking more doors in order to force the two to spend time together, but Hunk has made it very clear each time that he might be sitting with them, but he wants absolutely nothing to do with it. 

“A bet?” he asks, despite the dread spreading quickly through his stomach, “What kind of bet?”

Coran lifts a hand, twirling the corner of his mustache between his fingers. He allows the silence to fill the space between them for a few heartbeats, breathing slowly in and out as Hunk patiently waits for him to continue. 

“Well,” he says finally, “It’s not exactly meddling if all that we’re doing is betting on it, right? I was thinking that I could make a wager — if Lance finally makes a move before we leave this planet, I’ll allow you to prepare meals for a week.”

It’s a dirty trick: dangling one of Hunk’s most prized fantasies before him at the expense of betraying a friend. 

But then he thinks about Lance lashing out. He thinks that about the sullen look painting Keith’s features as they’d landed on this planet. 

He thinks about the fighting, the sleepless nights. 

And he realizes, pushing down the final inklings of guilt, that there is no way in Hell that Coran could win a bet like this. 

“No meddling, right?” he asks, after some time has passed, “We just watch how things play out? No getting our hands dirty at all?”

Coran nods, and Hunk rises quickly to his feet. 

Maybe this is the sort of thing that Coran does to keep himself occupied during their missions. Maybe he makes himself feel alive by placing tiny, private bets on the rest of their team. 

It’s a little weird, Hunk has to admit, but as they amble through the woods toward the closest village, he realizes that he already feels ten times more energized by the idea of cooking alone than he has in months.

 

* * *

 

In a tangle of wires, Pidge lets out an exasperated groan. She’s turning knobs and pushing various buttons, struggling to decipher what sort of technology has been used to keep the door locked tight for so many years. The control panel is written in a dialect that her software can’t quite figure out, and actually figuring it out is taking a lot longer than she’d anticipated.

Just as she’s gearing up to break something and call off the entire thing, she hears a shuffling in the bushes behind her. She tells herself that Lance or Keith must be returning in a fit, and she’s definitely not in the mood to deal with either of their nonsense.

“Whatever it is,” she says flippantly, jamming her fingers into a random button as roughly as she can muster, “I’m busy! Go find someone else to whine at!”

The shuffling pauses. There’s a long silence, far too long to be Lance, but maybe reasonable enough to be Keith. Still, the eerie sort of mood that sweeps over her suddenly makes her realize that whoever is standing directly behind her is probably not of this world. 

Well, maybe of _ this  _ world, but not of any world that she’s been familiar with before today.

Slowly, carefully, she cranes her neck to see. She’s expecting the three eyes peering down at her — the twin ruby and single, icy blue, but the sight of that smooth, silvery skin and unrelenting gaze sends shivers up her spine nonetheless. 

“O-oh, uh, hey there,” she has no idea how she’s supposed to interact with these people. Allura should have filled them in on the customs more than she did, “Sorry, I, uh… I thought you were someone else.”

The Androgian cocks their head to the side, noticeably quiet within her thoughts. They watch her even as they’re pulling themselves from the bushes, surprisingly small compared to their fellow people. She wonders if this one would be considered a child, if children are even a thing on this planet at all, or if Androgians are born into this world as fully grown as they’ll ever be.

“I’m Pidge,” she says after some time passes, tugging herself free from the wires and extending a trembling hand, “I’m one of the Paladins. We’re here to help you.”

The Androgian stares at her hand for a long while, the pupil of their third eye expanding and shrinking in gradual intervals. They’re shorter than the rest, at least by two feet. Their elaborate robes hang loosely from their spindly body, like an assortment of chicken bones wrapped in sparkling, bronze and navy silk. 

_ ‘My name is Almax,’  _ the voice within her thoughts quivers as the Androgian reaches forward and places their hand within hers,  _ ‘The elders say that you’re going to help us eat again.’ _

It’s a troubling string of words, coupled with the fact that Almax isn’t shaking her hand so much as simply holding it. She realizes that it’s probably not a custom here to do such things, and kicks herself internally as she awkwardly pries her arm away.

“Almax,” she replies, clearing her throat as she considers what to say next, “What do you mean  _ ‘help you eat again’ _ ? How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”

Almax’s unrelenting stare pierces into her for a few moments longer. She imagines that she might feel these eyes burning holes into her skin for weeks, even after they’ve departed. She’ll see them in her nightmares, surely, like glassy doll’s eyes staring at her unblinkingly as the silence buzzes in her brain. 

Ugh, what a creepy world. She has no idea how Lance could even consider sleeping with one of these aliens.

_ ‘There is a hierarchy on this planet,’ _ Almax’s words echo through her thoughts, _ ‘The elders eat first, then the hunters and gatherers. My family sits very low, so we must share the scraps. It’s been three moons since we’ve eaten anything at all.’ _

Three moons, Pidge assumes, is the equivalent of three days. Unless the nights last even longer, which might make some sense of Almax’s tiny frame. Regardless, her heartstrings pull tight within her chest, despite how creepy those eyes watching her are, and despite how terribly she wishes that they could have landed anywhere but here.

Before she can ask any more questions, Almax is leaning forward and dragging long, silvery fingers over the tangled device on the ground. Their third eye watches her, even as the others focus on the blinking lights on the device.

_ ‘This is wired incorrectly,’  _ Almax strings through her brain,  _ ‘The blue wire should connect to the purple wire. The red to the yellow.’ _

Pidge pulls off her glasses, rubbing the lenses between the fabric of her garb. When she places them back on the bridge of her nose, she leans forward and inspects the device, realizing with a start that Almax is completely right. 

After rewiring the device, the lights stop blinking. They beam up at her, lively and bright, and she turns her sights to Almax, dumbfounded.

“Say, Almax,” she draws out, scratching nervously at the back of her head, “Would you like to help me save your people?”

Almax’s expression doesn’t change. Their stare doesn’t falter, but Pidge likes to imagine that she finds excitement in their unwavering frown nonetheless. 

 

* * *

 

Garmak proves to be a really good tour guide. They urge him along, pointing out various plants, identifying animal life by their calls alone, leading him through the various shortcuts and more scenic routes that they swear most of the Androgians have never considered heading through before.

_ ‘The hyacin only come out during the moon,’ _ Garmak feeds into his thoughts, ghosting a hand over his shoulder as they tiptoe through a labyrinth of gnarled branches and vines coiling over the dirt beneath their feet,  _ ‘but you can hear their calls rattling through the forest during the sun. Our people like to joke that they are tremendously loud snorers.’ _

It’s surprising that Garmak even knows what snoring is, since they don’t have any vocal cords, but he finds himself laughing regardless. It’s been a long time since anyone has been so unguarded around him, and he can’t help but slip into a comfortable sort of contentment himself. It’s unwise, he thinks, to allow an alien who he barely knows to lead him off alone, but he reassures himself that Allura said that the Androgians are safe. 

They come to a gradual stop as they reach a clearing. The sunlight filters through the canopy of trees, sparkling through the dewy air, painting the ground in swatches of white among the greens and the browns of the grass, the vines, and the soft dirt. He can hear the hum of a waterfall up ahead, and it’s been so long since he’s witnessed water itself that he’s taken aback by the sensation of wetness pattering against his cheeks. When he looks around Garmak, he can see it: the stream pouring out into a narrow river. Birds, so much more vibrant and colorful than any back home, gather to drink. The sun plays against the water, glittering, hypnotising, and peaceful. It’s so warm here, so serene, that he almost feels as though he could lie down where he stands and fall asleep. 

“Wow,” he croaks, before he even realizes that he’s saying anything at all, “it’s so pretty.”

He takes a few steps forward, so transfixed on the river that he barely notices how close he’s coming to the edge. The birds eye him warily, but they don’t fly away. He could touch them, if he wanted to enough, if he were stupid enough to reach out and try.

_ ‘The laetux are gentle creatures,’ _ Garmak tells him, creeping behind him noiselessly, _ ‘they’re also very pretty.’ _

The laetux ruffle their feathers, returning to drinking as he dips his fingers into the water. It’s just as cool as he remembers, as the ripples work along the surface and disrupt the reflection of his starstruck expression. 

Garmak’s hand returns to his shoulder, a light, warm weight anchoring him to the reality that his stay on this planet is short-lived, that this tiny peek into life back home will end just like everything else, and before he knows it, they’ll all cram themselves back on the ship and fly away into the endless blackness of space. 

He’ll return to fighting relentlessly with Lance, to chasing the hints and struggling to figure out what went wrong between them. Everyone will keep their secrets in the cold, empty, silent ship. 

Something within his chest aches, but he smothers it. It’s not worth thinking about this right now. 

Garmak draws even closer, wrapping an arm around his shoulder that he’d shrug off in any other circumstances, and he can’t exactly understand why he isn’t right now. Maybe he’s missed the close contact. Maybe his teammates have spoiled him with their constant touching, and now that they’ve taken it away, he’s too weak to refuse it from anyone.

_ ‘Our planet is beautiful, of course,’  _ Garmark tells him,  _ ‘as are the wildlife that you will find here.’ _

He finds himself looking up into Garmak’s eyes, focusing on the deep, twinkling violets and trying to ignore the throbbing pupil of the third in the center of their forehead. They’re so close that he can feel their breath warm against his cheeks. He can smell the sweet, powdery scent of their skin, and feel the smoothness of their robes brushing against him.

_ ‘Despite this, I have to say, you are the most beautiful being that I have ever had the pleasure of seeing. This planet, these creatures, they pale in comparison to you.’ _

Keith finds that his breath, along with any words that he might speak in reply, shoved deep down in his throat. His heart races, his cheeks redden, and for the life of him, he can’t understand why. 

The Androgians seem strangely fixated on beauty. They seem to find it in just about everything that they come across. He reasons with himself that Garmak hasn’t seen a whole lot of humans. The other one — whatever the Hell their name was, who could not stop whining about the Gods — he’s sure that they’re feeding Lance or Pidge the exact same lines.

Before he can find the strength to retort, there’s a crack of a screech echoing throughout the clearing. He almost thinks that one of the unusual animals has been attacked, that it’s rattling off its dying call, until he turns quickly, tugging himself out of Garmak’s arms, and finds Lance standing breathless at the mouth of the woods.

“Are you serious?!” Lance bellows, fists tight at his sides, “Everyone else is working tirelessly out there, and you’re fucking around with this guy?!”

“I wouldn’t call them a guy, really,” is the only thing that Keith can think to say, and he kicks himself mentally for not pointing out the obvious holes in Lance’s argument. 

He’s not doing anything either. At least Keith was intending to help out before he caught Lance lazing around, desperately vying for the attention of an entire crowd of Androgians.

Garmak rises to their feet, towering over him as Lance stomps closer. Despite the obvious size difference, Lance doesn’t back down. He stares Garmak right in the eyes (maybe not the third one, but Keith can’t exactly blame him for being a little creeped out too), standing on the tips of his toes and puffing out his chest.

It might be funny, Keith thinks, to see this scrawny, wimpy jackass putting on such a peacock display, if he could understand what the Hell Lance’s problem is in the first place.

So what if they’d wandered off together? Lance wasn’t even focused on Garmak when Keith walked over. He’d been chatting up a completely different Androgian. And it’s not like there aren’t enough of them to go around! It’s not like Keith really did anything aside from remove himself from a situation that he knew would inevitably end in a fight. 

Old rage mingles with new within his chest. He finds his vision so clouded with red that he can barely focus on all of the stupidity tumbling from Lance’s lips.

“You think you’re better than me, huh? Aside from the silver skin and the extra eye, the nice body, the pretty hair, the height, and the supernatural powers, what do you really have that I don’t?!”

Keith cocks his head to the side. He could probably name off about a dozen more things if he really needed to, but he tells himself that now probably isn’t the time.

Garmak must be feeding something into Lance’s thoughts, because he only becomes more angry as the seconds pass quietly. He grabs the front of Garmak’s robes, pulling him so close that their noses almost touch.

“I hate him,” Lance hisses, so low and feral that Keith almost can’t believe that he’s the same goofy, carefree person who he’s dealt with since they started this mission together, “I don’t know what kind of disgusting shit he’s been telling you, but I can’t stand him. I-I’m not  _ weird _ like him, okay?! I don’t do things like that!”

Even as a voyeur in this apparent argument, Lance’s words still stir something deep inside of Keith’s chest. The anger still rattling through his veins is tainted by the confusion, the loneliness, the fear that he’s done something to ruin things between him and Lance. He wishes that Garmak would let him in on what they’re saying. He wishes that this entire exchange could be taking place far away from him so he could pretend that it doesn’t exist.

Lance reels back suddenly, eyes widening as a dark flush paints his cheeks. There’s a horrified sort of disgust tugging at his lips, a rage that Keith hasn’t seen blossoming behind his eyes since he’d awoken during their fight with Sendak to help them take him out.

“Don’t talk about him like that!” Lance yells, pushing against Garmak so hard that they stumble dangerously close to the edge of the river, “I-I don’t care if I hate him! You’re not going to talk about him like that!”

Right as he pulls back his fist, Keith’s legs finally decide to work again. He’s not going to stand idly by and allow Lance to ruin ten thousand-whatever years of friendship between the Androgians and the Alteans. He’s not going to let them start a war over whatever petty bullshit Lance has decided to get worked up about. 

Lance seems to throw his fist in slow-motion. Garmak steps further back, pulls themselves to the side. Keith stumbles forward, grabbing that fist, hoping to do whatever he can to thwart this just long enough that maybe everyone can cool off. 

He hates that he’s suddenly the level-headed one in this situation. Out of the three of them, he should be the one throwing a temper tantrum. 

He didn’t consider that adrenaline might be working in Lance’s favor. He didn’t think that jumping over to the uneven edge of the riverbed to stop a punch might throw him off balance. He has plenty of time to reflect on this as he’s barreling into the river, cushioned in the mud under the shallow water as both Lance and Garmak peer down at him with wide, fearful eyes.

This day just can’t get any worse, he decides. How in the world are they supposed to get mud stains out of surely priceless Androgian garb? Will this fabric even survive the castle’s washing machine? Will the tarnishing of their ancient robes still start a war despite the cause that they were sullied for?

What a headache. What a fucking nightmare. Lance apologizes profusely. He leans forward and extends a hand to help Keith up, but the redness still hasn’t faded from Keith’s vision. The anger only continues to boil over in his chest as that fucking moron has the audacity to believe that a simple “I’m sorry” is enough to smooth over everything that he’s put him through over the last two weeks. 

He closes his fingers around Lance’s hand in a deathgrip to end all deathgrips. He yanks hard, dragging Lance right into the river with him. Lance is yelling, then he’s yelling, and Garmak is watching silently as the two of them scream and shove, and roll around in the mud like little kids in a fist fight during recess. 

It doesn’t matter to Keith how stupid he must look. He’s going to shove Lance’s face so hard into the mud that he’ll be tasting fish shit in his teeth for the next month and a half. 

“Shut up!” Lance howls suddenly, spitting water over the front of Keith’s dampened chest as he reels his head in Garmak’s direction, “Can you shut up?! For just a minute, please?! I know how this looks, okay, but j-just — just shut up!” 

Keith pauses, lifting his hands from Lance and turning to stare in Garmak’s direction. They haven’t moved even an inch. Their expression remains placid. If Lance hadn’t spoken up, he wouldn’t have realized that they’d been feeding him lines at all. 

He chances another look at Lance, then allows his gaze to flick between them. Lance is so angry that he’s trembling, soaked and muddy, but still gearing for a fight. Garmak watches passively, seeming to speak to him through what only sounds to Keith like silence.

_ ‘Keith,’ _ Garmak’s voice suddenly whispers through his thoughts,  _ ‘I regret to say that I must leave you now. The elders are calling me. I would love to speak with you more when your mission is through.’ _

Lance is slipping in the mud, yelling about how Garmak is a coward who can’t leave just yet, how they’re lying about the elders and they’re just too afraid to face him. When Garmak disappears behind the foliage, Lance finally manages to pull himself to his feet, only to lose footing a moment later, tumbling down into the water.

Keith makes a move to catch him, and the two of them are a tangle of wet, sticky, smelly limbs flailing in the river.

Lance is practically laying on top of him, and when Keith makes a move to shove him off, he notices, belatedly, how much closer they are than they’ve been to each other ever, really. 

Noses bumping together, Lance’s breath hot against his skin. Lance watches him with hooded eyes. The world moves at half speed, the tittering of the birds and the humming of forest creatures muted around them. Even the water feels warmer. Even the mud doesn’t itch as much as Lance’s hand comes to cup his cheek. 

His heart thundering in his chest, Lance’s lips moving ever closer —

An explosion echoing so loudly through the forest that the ground quakes and birds fly away in a squawking frenzy.

“What the Hell?!” Lance tears himself away, sinking further into the mud as he drags himself to shore, “D-did you — ”

“Of course I heard that, stupid,” Keith huffs, grasping the ground tightly as he pulls himself out as well, “How could I have missed it?”

Lance’s retort is cut off by the shrill cry of a siren. They exchange a look. The explosion seemed to have originated from… somewhere east, and as Keith calculates the location in his head, he realizes, stomach dropping in terror, that it should have been right where he’d left Pidge behind. 

“We need to go,” he says hurriedly, jumping to his feet, dragging soaked robes behind him as he attempts to move along the path that Garmak had shown him, “Lance, _ now _ .”

Lance follows wordlessly, and for once, Keith wishes that he could think of something stupid to say, if only to break up the fear and the restlessness that’s weighing so heavily in the silence.

 

* * *

 

Ahmeeth returns with even more scrolls just as Pidge and Almax are attaching the device to the control panel against the cave’s steel door. They don’t seem particularly perturbed that not much of anything has gotten done, and they aren’t even phased by the new addition to Pidge’s team (or the absences of two of the lazier Paladins, but maybe even Ahmeeth is aware enough to realize that Keith and Lance having their drama somewhere else is a good thing). 

_ ‘What is this contraption supposed to do?’ _ they ask, setting down the scrolls a little haphazardly, completely ignoring the few that roll off into the grass,  _ ‘Will it complete the puzzle for us?’ _

It takes Pidge a moment to respond, not so much because she doesn’t know the answer to the question, but because Almax is also feeding information into her thoughts at the same time. They’re telling her about the God’s — about the countless centuries that their people have spent cowering and praying, begging and pleading for more than just barely enough to survive.

_ ‘They’ve told us that they are bigger and more brilliant than our puny minds could ever comprehend,’ _ they tell her, _ ‘If we were to ever witness one of them up close, we wouldn’t survive to tell the tale.’ _

“U-uh, Ahmeeth, yeah, it’s gonna translate the puzzles, then it’s gonna solve them,” she says, distracted by how long the device is taking to work, and by Almax’s haunting words bouncing around in her thoughts, “I don’t know why it’s taking so long, actually. Usually it’s a lot quicker with the translations.”

Ahmeeth scoffs, which is quite the sight in and of itself since they can’t actually make any vocal noises. They cross their arms over their chest, eyeing the cliffside and the towering door as though their hate alone might melt away the steel. 

_ ‘Honestly,’  _ Ahmeeth sneers, words hot and venomous within her brain,  _ ‘We ought to just blow the fucking thing up. Voltron is the defender of the universe, is it not? Those puny Gods would be no match for such a hero as Voltron!’ _

She brushes off the comment for a mere moment, but then she catches the way that Almax’s lips upturn at Ahmeeth’s words. She can’t deny the excitement that she sees in Almax’s eyes, the years of hardship heavy on such tiny shoulders, the realization that Voltron might actually have the ability to take down whichever monster is holding these poor people captive under its gigantic, unrelenting thumb.

“You know what,” she draws out, a surge of annoyance striking through her chest as she notices that the device hasn’t translated a new word since Ahmeeth returned, “Yeah, actually… Let’s do it. Let’s blow this thing to the ground.”

She doesn’t have to explain to them why she’s carrying so much rocket fuel on her person. They don’t ask. They help her put together a bomb eagerly, and Pidge decides that she was wrong about the Androgians after all. 

This place, for lack of a better term,  _ kicks ass _ . 

 

* * *

 

Keith is the first one to frantically reach the site of the explosion. He’s the first one to locate Pidge and make sure that she’s still all in one piece. She’s laughing so hysterically that they almost worry that she’d hit her head on some of the wreckage, but once she calms down, she clears her throat and explains to them exactly what she and two of the younger Androgians have done.

“Y’know, I just thought… these people are starving. And we’re freakin’  _ Voltron _ . Why don’t we help level the playing field a little?”

Lance can tell by the way that Keith purses his lips that he’s about to delve into a speech about discussing these things with the team before making brash decisions, but Shiro, Allura, and a group of Androgians arrive at the scene just in time to save her.

Smoke billows in thick, black clouds towards the sky, surely the first and only pollution that this planet will experience for a long, long time. As the fog of dust, of ash and rock clears away, the world beyond the wall is exposed. It appears to be farmland, a vast stretch of crop fields winding out as far as the eye can see. Beyond the greenery, there’s a smattering of houses, mud huts dark against the horizon of the second sun. There’s a crowd amassed on the other side, gaping, wide-eyed and —

Unusually….  _ Small _ .

They’re toad-like. Short, stubby, donning tiny suits and ties, like characters from some sort of anthropomorphic children’s book that Lance is sure he’d read as a kid. Their fat little fingers point forward, noiseless screams of terror strangled in their throats as they take in the growing crowd of Androgians and the humans who they have surely never witnessed before in their lifetimes.

Imani steps forward from the group, stone-faced as their voice rattles through everyone’s collective thoughts.

_ ‘Creatures, we are the Androgians. We wish to speak with our Gods.’ _

A long stretch of silence. The toad people seem to be rooted to the ground.

Until, finally, the fattest, stubbiest of them all steps forward, fiddling nervously with his silly little monocle and clearing his tiny toad throat.

Lance has to resist the urge to let out a little  _ ‘Awwww’ _ at the sight of it alone. This is all too ridiculous, but no one else seems to be giving in to the temptation to laugh. He risks a look at Keith, nearly rolling his eyes at the solemn expression that he finds there. 

Leave it to these losers to take everything too seriously. Since when are toad-people wearing people clothes not funny? Did he miss the memo? Is no one else seriously going to laugh at this?

“Y-you see, A-Androgians, u-uh… the thing is…” the little toad Mayor, or King, or whatever stupid title toads give to their leaders, straightens his tie under his neck folds, “W-we… are your Gods.”

Surprisingly, it’s not Imani who speaks up. It’s not even Allura or Shiro, or any of the Androgians who are watching on in horror behind them. It’s Keith who steps forward, voice cracking through the cliffs like a gunshot in the silence.

“ _ You’re _ their Gods?! You’ve been starving these people to death for years, forcing them to play your sick games, for what? For kicks? Because you’re too cowardly to face them yourselves? You pretended to be Gods because you didn’t want to share?! These are real, living beings, you know! You can’t just toy with their emotions because you’re too afraid to face the truth!”

Lance might try to calm him down, but he feels oddly put on the spot by the time that Keith tears himself away from the crowd and slinks back toward the trees. All eyes watch his receding back, confusion mingling with the indignation that his words inspire as a tidal wave of Androgian chatter begins to comb through Lance’s thoughts.

_ ‘They were pretending to be our Gods?’ _

_ ‘They’ve had more than enough crops to share _ _ — _ _ just look at all of that food!’ _

_ ‘They’re so small. The Gods have told us for centuries that they’re bigger and stronger.’ _

_ ‘Why would they do this? Why would they put us through such horrible conditions?’ _

_ ‘If they think that they can bully us and threaten us, maybe we should do the same to them!’ _

_ ‘Yes! We should kill them! We should take all of the food!’ _

_ ‘They should pay for what they’ve done!’ _

Imani raises their hands, turning slowly toward the crowd and silencing the frenzy of words twining through everyone’s minds.

_ ‘No,’  _ they say calmly, ignoring the cowering toad people, and Lance realizes suddenly why they’re the leader. Their people listen, no one beams out a single defying thought. In this moment, Imani is what a leader should be, what a hero should be, and Lance feels guilt creeping like a thousand tiny needles into his heart as he thinks about what a reckless, selfish child he’s been these last couple of weeks, just because he’s been fumbling with his own emotions.

_ ‘It is wrong, what they’ve done to us, but we are not like them. We will live in harmony. We will not lower ourselves to torturing another life form out of fear.’ _

The Androgians nod in agreement, and Lance slips away through the throngs of aliens, searching for wherever Keith has disappeared to. Shiro and Allura begin to speak to the crowd as well, promising to act as a buffer between the two species until the misunderstanding is settled.

He finds Keith in the clearing again, dipping his fingers in the water, shaking like a leaf in a hurricane.

And he doesn’t understand why he does it, but he leaves him alone. He tries to imagine what sort of face Keith might be making into the water. He tries to tell himself that the thought of it doesn’t make his chest ache.

Garmak smiles at him when he returns to the crowd. Imani is speaking with the toads’ leader.

Lance tries to convince himself that they did a good job, but all that he can think about is Keith shaking, and shaking, all by himself.

 

* * *

 

They board the ship long after both suns have set. Keith is a little surprised to find that there aren’t actually two moons, just one, but he can’t focus on it too much as they wave goodbye to the Androgians.

Pidge told him, once he’d calmed down and returned to the group, that Imani had pledged to forgive the “Gods” and live in harmony with them, and he wonders if he could ever be strong enough to forgive the people who have wronged him. He would have went straight for the jugular, he thinks, and maybe that’s what his problem is. 

Maybe that’s where he still needs to do some growing up. 

As he heads toward the ship, Garmak pushes through the crowd and calls out to him. He feels a little guilty for forgetting all about them, but again, he’s finding it a little difficult to focus on much of anything but how desperately he wishes to climb into bed and forget that this day ever happened.

_ ‘Keith,’  _ Garmak smiles, reaching forward and placing two big hands around his own, _ ‘I will miss gazing at your beautiful face. I promise that I will think of you often, if you promise to return here someday, if you ever find yourself near our planet in the future.’ _

While confused, Keith gives a noncommittal “yeah sure”, and a small, awkward shrug. He still hasn’t quite figured out what the Hell Garmak’s deal is, why they’re so determined that he’s “beautiful” or whatever, but he can’t deny that their tour of Androgia was probably the only redeeming part of today.

“Thanks,” he says, flicking his eyes away as a small flush creeps along his cheekbones, “For, uh, showing me around today. It was nice.”

Garmak releases his hands right as Shiro calls out, warning him that they need to go. 

_ ‘Any time,’ _ they tell him. 

As he’s heading up the walkway into the ship, he hears the vague tendrils of Garmak’s voice vibrating like white noise in the back of his thoughts. He can barely make out individual words, and he can’t make sense of what he thinks that he’s heard.

_ ‘Oh, I do hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave.’ _

He must be imagining things. It’s been a long day.

 

* * *

 

An awkward silence falls over the group as they watch the silhouettes of the Androgians grow smaller and smaller through the ship’s windows. Lance feels anger rumbling in his chest, arms crossed as he throws himself down into one of the chairs and glares daggers at Keith’s stupid mullet across the room.

So Keith can give him a hard time when he hits on hot alien babes, but it’s totally fine when anyone else does it? What the Hell was that back there anyway?! They have a job to do. They can’t sit there waiting around for Keith to have his fucking Titanic mushy-ass makeout scene every time that they’re trying to board the ship and leave! 

He can’t erase the image of that smug alien bastard smiling as they’d taken Keith’s hands in their own. He can’t forget the way that Keith’s cheeks had dusted with the most charming shade of pink as he’d looked away and muttered something surely so cheesy and romantic that Lance would lose his lunch and dinner if he’d overheard it. 

The nerve of that guy, really! And for what?! For some alien who he doesn’t even know if their junk will match up?! For some lowlife who probably can’t even reproduce at all?! 

That line of thought reminds him of something from earlier, and before he can stop himself, as a small, petty show of vengeance, he’s asking Coran a question that’s sure to take some of the wind right out of Keith’s stupid, mullet sails.

“Hey, Coran, you know how you were gonna tell me about how Androgian’s reproduce earlier? You should do that now.”

Keith sends him a fiery glare, squaring his shoulders as though he just knows that Lance is trying to get under his skin. Which, to be fair, he probably does. He barely comprehends the fact that everyone else is glaring at him as well, sans Coran, who hops up in excitement as he’s finally allowed to share his knowledge with a willing participant.

“Well, it’s actually quite interesting!” he cheers, finger pointed high in the air, “You see, while the Androgians have functional genitals, fairly similar to those of Alteans, their genitals are not involved in the process of reproduction, and their bodies are not suited for childbirth. In order to reproduce, special Androgians scouters are assigned to seducing other lifeforms, who they will use as the host of their young.”

The hair on the back of Lance’s neck stands on end. He really thinks that he might vomit. A glance at Keith reveals that all of this is apparently lost on him, whether he doesn’t care that he came dangerously close to being the “host” for Androgian young, or he doesn’t realize that Garmak must have been one of those “scouters”. 

No matter how ill Lance is suddenly feeling, Coran doesn’t take the hint to shut up. With every word, Lance becomes more and more thankful that he’d failed to bag a single one of them.

“Androgian scouts will lead the host into these special rooms designed only for the reproduction ritual. A dozen or more Androgians will then breed with the host, which can last anywhere from fifteen hours to four days! Once the host is impregnated, after a long year of incubation, the offspring will forcibly remove themselves from the host, and the rest of the community will proceed to raise them!” 

Lance rises from his seat, sparing one final look in Keith’s direction — who still, as frustrating and unbelievable as it seems, doesn’t have any clue what kind of trouble he narrowly avoided.

He stumbles from the room, thoughts racing with images of Garmak’s smirking face, with the passion in Keith’s voice as he’d yelled, the warmth of their skin so close together in the mud. 

He reaches the bathroom, throws open the door. 

And finally, after weeks and weeks of feeling sick to his stomach, he finally makes good on his promise to vomit. 

Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop the room from spinning, or his chest from feeling so ridiculously tight. 

And it definitely doesn’t stop him from wondering, at long last, why he cares so much about Keith and Garmak, or any of it, really. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is a long, long beast of a chapter! A lot of things going on in about eight thousand words. That being said, it was super enjoyable to write, which is probably why it ended up being such a monster in the first place! Lemon read through as I was writing and thankfully caught a lot of my typos and weird sentences, and once we got to the river scene, even though we'd planned it, she was still really frustrated with me for "kiss-blocking" them the way that I did. Oh well. So my sincerest apologies for that!
> 
> So next Monday is my birthday, which, as fate would have it, is Lemon's week to post! So honestly, this next chapter is going to be probably the best gift that I could ask for. As always, I know that it's going to be a ton of fun!
> 
> See you guys when I'm just a little bit older!


	8. Once Bitten, Twice Lance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting more aggravated by the whole ordeal all over again, Keith claps his hands on Lance’s shoulders, angrily looking into his eyes. “Look, robots shouldn’t have tiny santa hats, Lance. That’s messed up. It’s not...it’s not ok.”
> 
> “Um,” Lance says, gently prying his hands off of him. “How about you get some water with me and call it a night, ok?”

When Lance steps into his bedroom, he can tell instantly that something isn’t right.

 

No, it’s not his sheets, which are on his bed just as he left them, or his jacket hanging over the chair in the corner, or his suit locked up tight in the closet.

 

Looking around, he realizes it’s probably the sudden darkness of the room, the unsettling pitch blackness that surrounds him and swirls up from his feet to his head slowly like some eerie mist. The lights that often blink on and off are completely shut down, the windows show no stars or gaseous things usually giving off an ethereal glow.

 

It’s still and quiet as he treads in carefully, hair prickling up the back of his neck, hands posed in front of him as he blindly gropes his way towards where he knows his bed is.

 

“Lance,” a strained, low voice slices through the thick darkness, “Please, I-I need you…”

 

“Keith? Is that you, man?” Lance calls, squinting and creeping forward, until his bed finally comes into view. The scene that meets his eyes is one he was never expecting to see by a longshot. His feet become rooted to the ground, outstretched hands frozen in front of him, pants pulling painfully tight over his groin.

 

Keith is splayed on his sheets in a position Lance thinks he’s only seen on the gymnasts he used to watch in the olympics - legs bent too wide and obscene to be possible, back arched invitingly high, asscheeks spread open. He’s throwing a pleading look behind him over his shoulder, eyes all dark and lustful. Traditional Androgian robes are pulled up over his exposed ass, bunched up high around his waist, showing off the toned muscles of his legs and entire backside.

 

Biting his lip in a way that would ultimately give the lips from  _ The Rocky Horror Picture Show _ a run for its money, Keith’s face looks pained, like being this aroused is the ultimate torture for  _ him _ . Lance fights the urge to stare at how vulnerably on display he is, particularly at the erection he knows is hanging stiff and dripping between those sculpted thighs. He reels back in surprise, almost tripping over his feet when another voice calls through the heavy panting and groaning pouring from Keith’s full, pouty lips.

 

“He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?” Two large, inhuman hands trail down Keith’s back, slowly inching towards his ass, pulling the robes further up and up with every crawl of their silvery fingers. “His skin is so soft and smooth. I feel like I could never touch it enough.”

 

Lance feels his heart pick up speed for so many reasons, but the first and foremost, is the fact that rage boils through his veins, white hot and fiery. He croaks when he speaks, and one foot stomps forward indignantly with the bravado of his voice.

 

“Get away from him!” He’s hoping his glare is stern enough, fighting with every fiber of his being from watching Garmak’s groping and fondling of Keith right in front of his face. “H-he doesn’t want this, there’s no way this is what he wants.”

 

“The fuck do you know?” Keith bites harshly back at Lance through a whine, pushing against Garmak’s fingers like he can’t get enough. Childishly, he sticks his tongue out at him, cause that’s  _ so _ necessary. “Since when do you care, or even know, what I want?!”

 

Lance can’t believe Keith is willing to fight him even at a time like this. He grits his teeth, flexes his fists. The arousal between his legs is as insistent and aching against his zipper as the ache of jealousy in his heart.

 

Garmak rearranges Keith’s robe, flicking part of it back down to pull it taught across his ass, showing off the pleasing, curvy outline of it. Lance’s eyes fall to it, unable to drag them away from the sight.

 

“Tell him I think his ass looks really nice, especially with those robes clinging to him like that. You know, you can never quite tell the shape of one with these dreaded things on, but I can definitely see it now…” Garmak taunts, flipping Keith and pulling his back to their chest, snaking one arm up between his legs to part them. “It’s so firm and wonderful, I would love to watch it bouncing as I relentlessly pleasured him from behind.”

 

Bile rises in Lance’s throat along with his temper, stomach churning as he draws closer to them.

 

“Don’t talk about him like that!” Lance balls the fingers he’s been flexing into two, hardened fists, ready to pull back and drive them into Garmak’s stupid, telepathic skull. “I-I don’t care if I hate him! You’re not going to talk about him like that!”

 

Garmak ignores his warnings, only laughing in response.

 

“Isn’t he pretty like this? Such beautiful fury in this one,” Garmak says with a fondness to their tone that they most definitely do not have the fucking right to use. There’s hatred boiling in Lance’s veins, even as he’s suddenly aware of how none of this makes sense at all, because he just now seems to notice that Garmak is  _ actually _ speaking, lips moving intermittently in between making slow work suckling across Keith’s neck. “I think he’s going to make just the loveliest noises when I’m inside of him, wouldn’t you agree?”

 

Garmak presses into an even more gross perversion of a hug around Keith’s naked, heaving body. They tilt their head, not looking at Keith, but making steady three-eyed contact with Lance.

 

“That must be what you’re thinking about most of the time, too, isn’t it? You poor thing. What a terrible torture.”

 

Garmak spreads Keith’s legs wider, beckoning for Lance to come closer with one long, silvery finger. Lance gulps down the sandpaper that seems to have crawled up to coat his throat. That’s a clear invitation if he’s ever seen one.

 

Keith flushes, flusteredly trying to cover up the provocative position by attempting to close his legs. Garmak runs those long fingers soothingly through Keith’s hair to get him to relax, which surprisingly works as Keith sinks back with a sigh and leaves his legs opening wider and wider, all the while watching with half-lidded eyes as Lance inches towards him. He lets his head be cradled in the curve of Garmak’s neck and shoulder for support. Lance fights the urge to rearrange Garmak’s smug face, to break those dirty hands touching what should rightfully be  _ his _ .

 

“It’d be so easy right now, to just let go and take him. He’s so close, your bodies are already slick and heated in the moment. What’s stopping you?”

 

Lance’s feet numbly move forward until he’s right in front of Keith, hand stretching out to curiously brush over the smooth expanse of Keith’s stomach. Garmak laps at Keith’s ear, and Lance cringes.

 

“What?” Keith’s brows furrow, even as he arches his back and moans when Lance thumbs over a nipple. “What are they saying?”

 

Lance frowns, though never ceasing his steady, circular motions over Keith’s tensed abs. Why would Keith ask what they’re saying when he can hear them plain as day at that very moment?

 

Garmak laughs again, draping one arm over Keith’s shoulder and crawling fingers across his collarbone possessively. They only laugh more when Lance knocks it viciously away. He can’t help but get the feeling Garmak is tainting Keith. “Aren’t you going to tell him? Are you really going to let this continue going on as it probably has been?”

 

“Shut the fuck up! It isn’t what it looks like, it isn’t like that, you pervert.”

 

“Oh, I think it’s exactly what it looks like.” Garmak twirls a bit of Keith’s hair around their finger, watching with all eyes on Lance as his clothes fall away and onto the floor without him removing them. “He’s so eager, so ready and willing, and you’re going to deny him? I knew he’d be wasted on a fickle thing like you.”

 

“This is bullshit,” Keith continues, somehow finding it necessary to keep talking even as Garmak pins his arms behind his back and sucks lewdly on his neck. Lance settles himself shakily between Keith's thighs. He can’t believe he’s doing this, but he couldn’t stop even if he wanted to, even if his very being depended on continuing to deny this with every fiber of his being. “I bet they’re not even saying anything! I bet you’re just making shit up right now!”

 

Keith only pauses in his rant to clench his teeth as Lance slides into him slowly, gripping sharp nails with a bruisingly tight grip over Lance’s hips, lust-filled eyes never breaking contact. His words surely don’t match up with the way he cants his own hips in time with Lance’s first tentative thrusts in and out, with the way he throws back his head and urges Lance closer to him by tangling fingers into his hair.

 

There are no protests, only the many whimpers and groans for him to move faster, to go harder in between what seems like an oddly familiar script.

 

“Ugh, fucking typical! I don’t even know what your problem is anymore, I’m so sick of this.”

 

“Look at him,” Garmak urges, falling back away from them, third eye expanding and contracting in a way that sends shivers down Lance’s spine. “Look at how his muscles contract in his rage, how his face contorts with that wild and rare beauty so many others strive to have come to them naturally. Truly, the perfect specimen.”

 

“He’s not a fucking _ specimen _ , he’s a person, asshole! A living, breathing being with a personality and aspirations and complex feelings, not some goddamn experiment or object for you to use!”

 

Lance’s grip tightens around Keith’s waist, his pace picks up in his anger. Fucking Garmak and their fucking unnecessary words. Of course he can see it, he’d have to be blind to not be able to soak in the entrancing sight playing out before his very eyes. Where else would he even be looking right now?! As far as he’s concerned, Garmak is dead to him in that moment - it’s just him and Keith in that room, on that bed, the heat of their bodies wrapped in so much pleasure boiling to the surface in the most satisfying crescendo.

 

“Imagine it, human, his legs wrapped around your neck as he moves in that controlled and passionate way while you fuck him until he’s nothing but putty between your fingers, until all he can do is cry and beg you for more. Think about the things he might say or do to you then. Perhaps he would be nicer, but ah, who knows until you actually do it…”

 

_ Shut up shut up shut up-- _

 

“Why do you hate me?” Keith pants out suddenly, eyes fluttering open wide, innocent and heart-breaking. Unsteady fingers twitch and fumble blindly over Lance’s skin while Keith’s moans grow steadily louder. “What the fuck did I ever even do to you?!”

 

“I-I don’t, I have never,” Lance stumbles to find the words in between trying to catch his breath, wondering if this is at all an appropriate conversation to be having when he’s finally getting the chance to live out his wildest dreams. This seems about as wrong as it feels right. “I would never, could never.” He chokes over the words, voice frail and raspy before he settles on the simple thought that’s been plaguing him for weeks, “I...don’t hate you, Keith.”

 

“Prove it, then.” Keith thrashes against the sheets, red flush wrapping past his cheeks and filtering to the rest of his face and neck. Then he says something that isn’t so familiar.

 

“Kiss me, Lance, fucking prove it.” He guides Lance’s head down, tugging him by the hair with no gentle touch. “Prove you don’t hate me.”

 

“I…” Lance moves his grip from Keith’s waist to trail a finger across those pouty lips. He’s so close, he can hear their heartbeats beating in unison as their bodies become seemingly one tangled, sweating mess of limbs and salt-slicked skin. His lips hover mere centimeters away, Keith’s puffs of warm breath hanging a sticky sort of condensation over them, and yet, he still can’t do it.

 

He’s a coward, a fucking coward. He doesn’t deserve to have this after the way he’s acted. He hates to think this, but - Garmak is right.

 

“I-I can’t.”

 

But Garmak is also gone, they’ve been gone for quite some time now, even as their smile stays. A cheshire grin that doubles, triples, until there’s thousands of that obnoxiously odd smile around them, sharp set of pearly white teeth stretching and shining brightly in the dark, opened in a ghastly laugh as Lance thrusts into Keith over and over and over again.

 

“Trust me,” the disembodied mouths say, “He wants this, too.”

 

No. No, that can’t be right. Garmak is a fucking dirty liar, messing with his head and heart just for the fuck of it, and Lance isn’t falling for their act. 

 

Keith frowns at being denied the one simple thing he asked for, but his head is whipping back, pornographic moans flying from him like so many unanswered prayers of Lance’s finally coming to life. He cums moments later, as beautiful and breathtaking as Lance has imagined it so many times over - only to disappear like sand through a sieve beneath Lance’s fingers, leaving him grappling at nothing but air, confused and calling out for Keith as he frantically searches the empty folds of the sheets.

 

An overwhelming wave of dread follows in place of the orgasm that should have come. Lance feels worse than he had before this all started. It doesn’t seem like the way a dream should be coming true. He can feel Garmak’s presence remain, can hear their voice saying the things he still isn’t okay hearing.

 

“Whether you believe me or not is inconsequential. It’s all true, though I can’t for the life of me imagine why. He does want this, wants  _ you _ .” Garmak’s words take on a bored tone as their obnoxious voice finally gradually begins to fade out. “You humans shouldn’t underestimate us, we can sense sexual arousal and attraction, you know. It’s kind of like our thing?”

 

Lance stares into the once again dark room numbly, trying to pinpoint the direction of that grating voice, holding the sheets dumbfoundedly in his hands. Garmak sighs.

 

“I’ll put it in terms that your primitive brain can more easily comprehend: that means I can feel his desire for you, idiot.”

 

This isn’t a dream, this is a nightmare.

  
  


* * *

 

  
  


Lance wakes with the weirdest boner he thinks he’s ever had - and that’s saying something, since he already had one nightmare the night they returned from Androgia about Keith being a housewife, complete with an apron and cooking him dinner. They had been surrounded by a bunch of little kids running around, which horrifyingly looked like tinier, mixed versions of themselves. Dream Keith had stopped cooking only to fuck him in nothing but that damn apron, and Lance definitely still isn’t over the fact he woke up to wet sheets and sticky thighs from that one.

 

He shakes his head of the disturbing memories, smooths out the cold sweat on his neck, tries to ignore the weight of his erection pressing insistently towards his stomach. Despite the fact it’s throbbing with the need to be touched, Lance has never felt further from being in the mood to do so.

 

This dream was different. No matter how he looks at it, there’s not much comedic value in seeing Keith’s crestfallen face after he couldn’t work up the nerve to kiss him, nothing particularly funny or sexy about Keith disappearing into dust while he fucked him, or Garmak’s creepy mouths everywhere repeating all their perverted bullshit that they told Lance during their confrontation the other day.

 

As Lance gets up and pulls on clothes shakily, completely turned off from attempting to sleep more, he can only hope that he didn’t scream anything out during this dream. Because he’s sure if he had, it might contain the most incriminating things he’s said yet.

  
  


* * *

 

 

Out in the kitchen, Hunk, Pidge, and Keith are already seated for breakfast and eating some mushy red and green substance that’s arranged to look a lot like a yule log. Coran is nearby, standing like some observer at a post as he’s ought to do. He’s not eating, but instead turning a nose up at the dish on the table. Lance raises an eyebrow, wondering for the first time in a while if somehow the time is anywhere near Christmas and he maybe just missed the memo, but no one says anything about it. There’s something oddly familiar about this picture. He glances at Hunk, whose whistling really isn’t making him any less suspicious.

 

Wordlessly, tired beyond belief and unable to make eye contact at anywhere near the area where Keith is sitting, Lance takes a seat and serves himself some of the strange arrangement. Everyone else is luckily looking about as weary as he is, still recovering from the strain of their trip, so Lance isn’t too worried about appearances. One bite from the unappetizing-looking mush is enough to soothe some of his still jittery nerves, the taste dancing delight over his tastebuds.

 

“Whoah, this is delicious. Did Coran really make this?” Lance shovels more food into his mouth, ignoring the disgruntled noise Coran makes in response. 

 

“Um, no. I did. Coran is...letting me use the kitchen for the next week,” Hunk says around a mouthful, gulping down what he had and letting his gaze drift to the left. 

 

“Hell yeah! Finally, some quality food to look forward to. Your cooking is fantastic, as usual!”

 

More disapproving looks from Coran.

 

Hunk stares off towards a point near Pidge, though she’s completely focused on her food. Lance stifles a laugh when he follows his gaze to her. Even though he saw her right after the explosion, he’s definitely going to find the fact that she burnt off her eyebrows and singed a lot of her hair hilarious for the next couple of weeks. Or at least until it all grows back.

 

Though he’s a little taken aback by the information that Coran has relinquished his iron hold on the kitchen so easily, Lance has more pressing issues at the forefront of his mind.

 

...Like trying not to think about how good it felt to be inside his dream version of Keith, the way his moans were the most beautiful music to his ears, how his face contorted into a cute mixture of his usual pout and absolute bliss as he moved seamlessly, sweaty and pleading, underneath him. Lance is wondering, letting his eyes drift over curiously towards Keith, if the image in his dreams might be as accurate as he’s imagined, before he realizes where the fuck he actually is.

 

Hoping the flush on his face recedes quickly as he makes an undignified sort of squeak into his food, he tries to shift his focus onto anything else, lest more embarrassing things start happening. It falls unfortunately on Pidge, and words are jumbling out of his mouth as an abrupt distraction to his current distressing situation.

 

“Sooo…” He drums his fingers on the table slowly, garnering the attention of the others and breaking the peaceful silence of the room. “You’re looking…extra crispy today, Pidge. Much like Hunk’s cooking, if I do say so myself.”

 

“Fuck off,” Pidge snaps back without looking at him, eyes narrowing and hand tightening around her spoon. 

 

Hunk snorts into his bowl, and when Pidge turns to glare at him, he mumbles a small ‘I’m sorry’ with a large smile still working over his face. He fistbumps Lance under the table as he apologizes. 

 

Coran bristles behind them, but as far as Lance is concerned, he’s just getting started, because Keith starts _ chuckling,  _ his stoneface shattering for once. It’s a gentle, burbling sort of quiet laugh, low and pleasant to Lance’s ears - and it’s just about the cutest thing he’s ever heard.

 

“Hey, settle down. Don’t take me so seriously, Pidge, it’s just a joke. You did a great job the other day. We were all very impressed with that. Seriously, well done, man.”

 

Hunk bites back another laugh, looking at Lance in anticipation for the next blow. Pidge is gripping her spoon so hard he’s surprised it hasn’t bent.

 

“...and by well done, I mean that’s the level your hair is at right now.”

 

“Ohhh, snap.”

 

Pidge doesn’t respond, settling on gritting her teeth as both Hunk and Keith burst out laughing.

Lance beams, watching Keith closely as his face morphs into the biggest, most blinding grin. Those dimples, the small crinkle of his nose, all fall into place like the most gorgeous puzzle Lance has ever laid eyes on. Keith’s laugh becomes louder, even deeper in pitch.

 

And before Lance continues talking, for one small, brief tick, he thinks maybe, just maybe, he could work up the courage to kiss those pretty lips one day. That maybe it would be okay to let go and do so when the moment was right. That maybe he can admit to himself that he was so close to doing it anyway during their romp in the mud. 

 

Maybe…

 

“I wouldn’t usually say this, but you are truly smoking today, girl.” Lance makes sure to draw out the word ‘girl’, flashing a pair of finger guns. Hunk and Keith groan along with their laughter. Coran only groans, slapping a hand to his forehead as he gives up trying to keep any sort of order.

 

“How original,” Pidge drawls, not really eating anymore so much as she’s flinging around the food on her plate roughly. Lance is honestly shocked that she hasn’t ordered Rover to attack him yet.

 

“Sick  _ burn _ ,” Lance boasts, heart rate increasing and happiness rising the more and more he looks at Keith’s smiling face. He’s not sure if it’s his imagination or not, but he swears Keith is fluttering his eyelashes at him more than usual. “Speaking of things that are burnt, I--”

 

“That’s it! I’m outta here, I don’t have time for this bullshit.” Pidge gives up on all pretense of ignoring him, pushing away from the table and letting her spoon clatter loudly onto it, staring snottily at Lance as she does it like she’s imitating a mic drop. As she passes Lance, she smirks, leaving one last comment behind before she strides indignantly out of the room. “Also, quit showing off to Keith. It’s seriously annoying. And you’re not funny at all, either, by the way.”

 

If it was at all possible for a robot devoid of any humanoid qualities to storm out, Rover definitely achieved the subtle emulation of one as they follow after Pidge in a decidedly huffier way than usual somehow.

 

Lance goes rigid in his seat, face flushing with renewed heat. Confusingly, Keith lets loose another giggle before pausing, as if it took him a second to realize the insinuation of what Pidge said. Even worse, his cock-eyed grin remains instead of his normal clueless look, aimed shyly in Lance’s direction.

 

“Yeesh, what’s...what’s her problem? I-I mean, you’d think she was on  _ fire _ , what with the way she ran off, am I right or am I right, guys?” Lance stammers, trying to brush off his embarrassment of being called out so casually. He wasn’t showing off to Keith! Pidge is obviously reading into things too much.

 

“Showing off what, though?” Keith says, but it doesn’t hold the usual, genuinely confused tone he has whenever he fails to pick up on a nuance of something. He looks directly at Lance then with half-lidded eyes - snarky in nature, but only looking incredibly suggestive to Lance, being way too reminiscent of the one dream Keith gave him. Lance feels his heart flutter rapidly up into his throat. “How lame he is?”

 

And it falls right back down.

 

Hunk laughs harder, beating a hand on the table, before he realizes Lance is still there. Straightening out, he mutters, “Sorry. But you’ve got to admit, that’s pretty funny.” 

 

Coran, who had been intermittently trying to get them to behave and failing without the strict aid of Shiro and Allura to back him up, actually has the nerve to nod in agreement with Hunk.

 

Keith’s coy smile broadens. Damn that boy’s stupid dimples and damn his own stupid weakness for them.

 

Lance sits back, shoulders slumping as he crosses his arms. “Hey, you all laughed at my jokes, so that...that makes you just as lame as me!”

 

Hunk swirls some of his food in his bowl while shaking his head. “Naw, I don’t think it works like that, dude.”

 

Hunk too?! There’s no other way to describe what’s happening to him right now, other than absolute  _ betrayal _ .

 

“It definitely doesn’t,” Keith agrees, tilting his head and pressing a hand to cup his chin, and how dare he flash a hint of teeth through that adorable smile. “You _ could _ say we were laughing  _ at _ you just as much as we were laughing at Pidge.”

 

A moment of insecurity breaks through Lance’s attempt to look flippant. “...Wait, were you?”

 

Keith only keeps that mischievous grin plastered on in response. Lance wishes that he could sink through the floor, or better yet, jettison himself out into the cold, outer space around them.

 

A dignified, quick, and quiet death, fitting for the horrible turn that his life has taken as of late.

 

“Ha, well, wow, look at the time,” Hunk says through the awkward silence that falls between them, hurrying up out of his seat. “I’ve got to, uh, get going. Prepare for that, you know, that next planet we’re going to. Gotta recharge!”

 

Coran trails after him, calling to Hunk about discussing something for the mission, and Lance can’t seem to make his body cooperate with his mind, which is screaming at him to stop staring at Keith and just leave. He knows when to retreat and admit defeat after having his pride wounded enough, but Keith won’t stop fucking smiling, and he can’t stop fucking looking.

 

Keith does the honors for him anyway, nonchalantly returning to eating his food with a flip of his hair like nothing even happened, like no one was ever in the room with him.

 

So Lance takes that cue to leave, relieved that Keith inadvertently saved him from an infinite gay hell of staring indefinitely at his cute ass face.

 

And if Keith watches his retreating back closely when he leaves, Lance surely is still too frazzled to notice.

 

* * *

 

  
  


“How can you be so sure that this is going to work?”

 

Shiro regrets the words as they leave his mouth. He doesn’t want to seem disrespectful for questioning a princess, but he can’t say that he agrees that anything has really changed between Keith and Lance. They’ve been slightly less snippy with each other, sure, but they aren’t exactly talking out their differences either.

 

“Trust me. There’s something about their aura that is different. Something happened to them while they were on Androgia, and I think this is the perfect moment to strike!”

 

Allura raises her hand into a fist, punching it into the air like she’s holding a javelin.

 

“Saying it like that sounds sort of...bad.” Allura cocks her head, confused. “Never mind,” Shiro quickly smooths over the wrong direction that their conversation is headed. “Tell me about the plan.”

 

“I’ve cut off all the water sources from around Lance’s room!”

 

Allura beams proudly. Shiro scratches the back of his head. “Um. And that’s...going to…” He gulps, trying to will down the flush from being under Allura’s excitable gaze for so long. “Do...what...exactly?”

 

“I noticed Keith moping around the kitchen after dinner!”

 

Shiro wonders if Alteans have some sort of telepathic link much like the Androgians do, because he’s completely failing to understand how these two things are seemingly connected.

 

She sighs at his continued blank stare. “Shiro, focus! Certainly, an Altean child would have a better head on their shoulders than you do right now. Obviously, the closest place to where Lance would need to go if he gets thirsty, is to the kitchen.”

 

“Oh, right.”

 

More awkward silence. More exasperated sighs from Allura.

 

“A confrontation could then happen. If Lance gets up to get a drink, which he probably will since I’ve seen on the cameras that that’s part of his nightly routine--”

 

Feeling creeped out becomes the greatest understatement.  “Whoah, wait, the ship has cameras? Are you _ spying _ on us?” He hopes that Allura isn’t watching them in their rooms too, or god forbid, the bathroom.

 

“ _ Shiro _ .”

 

“Right, right. The plan. Listening.”

 

“Any minute now, he’ll come out, and say,  _ ‘What’s up with the quiznakking water?! _ ’” Allura does an over-exaggerated impression of Lance: lowering her voice, puffing out her chest, and pointing finger guns, like that’s exactly how Lance would ask for water. Shiro laughs. It’s pretty accurate.

 

“And that’s when you’ll come in, all,  _ ‘Oh, sorry! There’s been a malfunction, dear. You’ll have to go down the hall, alright? It’s important to stay hydrated!’ _ ” She does an impression of him this time, clasping her hands out in front of her with big, wide eyes. Shiro is much less amused by that.  _ ‘Dear’ _ ? Really?

 

“Then I’ll suggest he go to the kitchen, because that’s the only option, and boom! Right into Keith. It’s foolproof!”

 

Shiro isn’t so sure, considering that the whole thing sounds like a plotline from a cheesy rom com movie, but he can’t bring himself to put a damper on Allura’s good mood. So he shakes his head and agrees that it’s a very solid plan.

 

Just then, Pidge’s door opens up, startling both of them. She rubs her eyes, yawning as she leans in the doorway, a coffee mug with something looking and smelling a lot like hot chocolate grasped in her tiny hands. She’s wearing uncharacteristically red pajamas with Christmas trees and candy canes on them, and Shiro instantly has so many questions about it, the forefront of which is  _ ‘Where in the world did you find pajamas like that?’ _ , with a close second being, _ ‘Wait, is it Christmas?’.  _

 

“Hey, you know I can hear you, right? Can you guys keep it down? It’s kind of late.”

 

“Sorry Pidge. Yeah, we’ll keep it down, Allura’s just...a little excitable right now.”

 

“I’ll bet,” Pidge says, snorting. Shiro frowns. He’s about to ask her what the hell that’s supposed to mean, when Allura cuts him off with a sharp, frantic whisper.

 

“Oh, no,” Allura shakes Shiro by the shoulders with a strength that is bordering on painful, looking worriedly in the direction of Lance’s room, which is only a few doors away. “Do you think Lance heard us?”

 

“Probably. You guys are like, right there, basically yelling about your plans.” Pidge takes a sip from her mug. Allura looks crestfallen. Shiro elbows Pidge in the side as best he can without Allura seeing. 

 

“Ow! What the fuck, Shi--” 

 

Allura’s ears perk up at that, shifting her attention back to Pidge. Shiro makes sure that he’s glaring enough behind Allura for Pidge to get the picture.

 

“Um, I mean. It’s probably fine? He’s kind of not paying attention lately, don’t think he’s been sleeping very well.” She’s smiling a little too broadly as she says it. Shiro makes a note to have a talk with her later, because he can tell that she’s definitely up to no good. 

 

Allura relaxes, which Shiro is thankful for, because he thinks she may have dislocated his shoulder. Right as she’s about to say something else, Lance’s door slides open. Pidge takes that as her cue to leave, but not before saying, “Oh, Shiro. By the way. That impression Allura did of you? Spot on.”

 

“What?” Shiro lets his shoulders slump, or at least he thinks he does, considering they’re completely numb. “Really?”

 

Pidge nods. “Sorry, gotta go.” Before she turns away, she says a little louder as Lance draws closer within earshot, “Happy holidays!” and pushes a candy cane at Allura before tailing it back to her room. It’s made out of pipe cleaners.

 

And then she’s gone, and Lance is right in front of them, an unamused look on his face. Eyeing the candy cane Allura is holding distastefully, his hands are shoved in the pockets of his jacket, his back hunched over. In a tired, bored tone, he asks them, “Hey, the water fountain is broken over here or whatever. You know what’s going on?”

 

Shiro points down the hall, trying to keep a stoneface. “Uh, we’re investigating the reason behind that at this very moment, but for now, the kitchen has the only working running water. Sorry.”

 

As Lance thanks them and slouches off, Shiro hopes that this will work, that maybe Lance and Keith can make that connection that he’s sure they’ll be great at - whether it’s a romantic one or not, if they simply become friends, he’ll feel more at ease. Things won’t only be easier for them, but also for everyone involved. Keith has been like an adopted younger brother in his eyes ever since they worked together at the Garrison, and he knows he can be sensitive. As the only one on the team who’s probably aware of his background growing up as an orphan, Shiro has always held a strong sense of duty to help him. He feels a little bad that he hasn’t gotten much of a chance to speak to him lately because of the missions, and he makes another note to do so as soon as he can.

 

“Shiro, that was brilliant!” 

 

Shiro’s worried thoughts are abruptly interrupted by a warm body pressing against him, strong arms wrapping around his waist, the most exotic smell overwhelming his senses as Allura hugs him so hard he has trouble breathing. Her hair is soft and tickling under his nose, and tentatively after the initial surprise he hugs back, savoring every bit of the moment that he can. Allura hops away only seconds later, though it feels like time froze.

 

“It was nothing,” he says, because, literally, it was...nothing. But Allura goes in for the killing blow, pecking him lightly on the cheek and grinning from ear to ear as she watches his reaction. Shiro barely has any time to register all the events that just happened, head reeling in the clouds when she tugs on his arm, pulling him towards the control room. 

 

“Come on, we’ve got to see what happens!”

 

* * *

 

 

Keith’s curled into more or less of what can be described as a human ball, huddled in a window seat in the room adjoining the kitchen and dining room, when Lance walks by him. Having been sulkily brooding out at the stars with the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up and knees tucked into it like a little kid, he wouldn’t have even noticed he was there if it hadn’t been for Lance’s disgruntled mumbling. 

 

Their eyes meet as they both turn towards each other at the same time. There’s a pregnant pause, where only the sound of the ship’s various controls and lights blinking and beeping softly in the darkened room can be heard.

 

“Um, hey,” Lance says quietly after about a minute, jabbing a thumb towards the kitchen, “I, uh, I was...just going to get some water. What are you doing out here so late?”

 

Keith means to say something casual, maybe like a  _ ‘yo’  _ or a  _ ‘what’s up’ _ , or possibly something edgier like _ ‘leave me alone, jerkass’ _ if he really felt like continuing to be standoffish with Lance, but instead, his mouth works faster than his exhausted brain can comprehend. 

 

“Garmak was planning to fuck me to probably near death in a giant orgy for days so they could impregnate me with like, a million little alien babies, weren’t they?”

 

Pulling his knees closer into his chest and tucking his chin to them, his voice sounds hollow to himself as he says everything in one, giant breath. It’s not so much a question as much as it’s the fact that he hasn’t had anyone to vent to about it at all, and it feels good to get that off his chest. He’d been apprehensive because only Lance knew about what happened back on Androgia between them anyway, and he still was a little too annoyed to have a heart-to-heart with him about it at the time. 

 

Stewing over it for almost two days alone, though, clearly wasn’t doing him any favors, so why not take that dive? Honestly, what does he have left to lose after a horrific reveal like that? It hadn’t been until he’d gone to his room later that night after Coran had told them, after he’d gotten over his initial anger with Lance, that he’d finally realized the gravity of the awful fate he’d  narrowly escaped right as he was attempting to get to sleep. Needless to say, he hadn’t slept much since.

 

Lance splutters for a moment, obviously caught off guard. Maybe he’s too tired to bother fumbling around the issue, because he catches his wits surprisingly fast, considering the gravity of the question. He sighs, long and loud, quits walking towards the kitchen, and instead lets his back hit the wall across from where Keith is balled up. 

 

“...uh, yeah, buddy. Yeah. Do you...want to talk about it?”

 

Keith has the sinking suspicion that maybe Lance had already prepared for a conversation like this. There’s no teasing about him not getting it at first, no jabs about his _ ‘delayed reaction’  _ to the whole thing, and that simple fact makes Keith feel more relaxed than he has in days. He forcefully blows out the breath that he’d been holding, fluttering his bangs up in the process. He side-eyes Lance, relieved to see Lance doing the same.

 

“That’s...super fucked up,” is all that he can manage to say on the matter. He realizes with a start, that that’s all he really wanted to say. All that he really  _ can _ say.

 

Lance gives a small, comforting smile. He throws out a hand as he talks. “Hey man, you don’t have to tell me that twice.”

 

A silence falls over them, but it doesn’t feel strained or tense. Keith uncurls himself slightly, pulling his legs from his sweatshirt so he can sit back against the windowsill. The ridiculousness of the situation hits him hard then, and before he knows it, he’s snapping back his head so he can laugh - and once he starts, he really can’t stop. 

 

These past few weeks have been so strange and awkward, and he’s still not really sure what the fuck this is all about anymore, but letting loose some of the tension between him and Lance unwinds something deep within him that makes him feel more at ease and calm than he thinks he’s ever felt before. An incredible peace washes over him.

 

There’s something--something about Lance that seems very welcoming and easy to talk to.

 

Or maybe. Maybe it’s the simple fact that he doesn’t seem so  _ utterly alone  _ for once.

 

Lance allows him to let it out as the minutes roll by, and at some point, he joins in on the laughing himself. He slides down against the wall so he can sit, chuckling lightly. It’s a nice laugh, Keith thinks. It’s not anything like the raucous, obnoxious laughter that he usually makes that sounds so gratingly fake, like he’s putting on a show for an audience with the sole purpose of annoying them in mind.

 

When Keith finally stops to catch his breath, clutching onto his aching stomach, he wrinkles his nose and adds one final afterthought on the matter. “Ugh, space sucks.”

 

“It really does sometimes, dude. It really fucking does.”

 

Keith looks over at him, a little startled to see that Lance is already watching him carefully, a laughter-induced flush lining his cheeks. He wonders briefly before shaking his head of the thought, if Lance maybe watches him too sometimes when he isn’t paying attention.

 

There’s honestly no need to go there. What’s happening right now, is admittedly, nice enough. Keith has always grown up with that as a sort of motto for himself: take only what is offered to you, and never more than you need. Without the guidance of a family, it’s the best thing he’s managed to use to live by, and it’s always worked for him just fine in most situations.

 

He pushes down the fact that this time, he’s feeling more like maybe he’s getting the short end of a particularly pointy stick. Lower your expectations, essentially. Right. Great.

 

He doesn’t think the bar can get lower than being underground.

 

Caught up in his musings, he almost misses when Lance speaks, worry lining his face. “So is... _ that _ the reason you’re up so late? Not that I wanna pry, it’s cool if you want me to, uh...fuck off or whatever. I know I’m probably not the best company.”

 

Keith considers how to respond before impulsively opening his big mouth again, because the urge is still strong to be a smartass about that suggestion. He tilts his head and smirks. “You can stay, but only if you’re nice.”

 

Lance huffs at being implied to not be nice usually, but he nods his head, sealing their truce of sorts. Keith’s honestly surprised at how easily that works. Maybe he should ask Lance to be nice more often.

 

“And no, that’s not really the reason why I’m up.” He mulls it over a bit more before admitting, “Well, maybe a little, cause, uh. I was pretty close to being a dad or mom? Or whatever the fuck, and that was...no. Terrifying, and so gross.” 

 

His stomach churns unpleasantly, hairs prickling on the back of his neck. Lance raises a palm to his mouth and snorts, though his face pales considerably. Keith itches to change the subject as rapidly as he can, since he’s said about all he can stomach on that matter.

 

“Hey. But you know when you get to that part of the night where you start thinking about a bunch of things you haven’t really thought about before?”

 

Lance shuffles his legs, scratches the messy mop of his hair that indicates he’d most likely been in bed, and was suffering from the same fate right then. It’s a gamble, being this open with the guy who’s been getting on his every nerve for a while now, but Lance has been much more docile since they returned from Androgia, and Keith’s too tired to give anymore fucks.

 

There’s nothing like narrowly missing being fucked and impregnated into oblivion to make a small rivalry seem...like nothing important at all, in the grand scheme of things.

 

“Yeah…” Lance’s eyes flit away, and he coughs. “Yeah, I’ve...definitely had that.”

 

Keith unfolds his legs, instead choosing to let them dangle over the ledge. He’s never been one to talk much, but it feels like a dam is breaking inside him, and Lance is here, and he’s actually listening, so hell if he’s not going to take this opportunity.

 

He lowers his voice to a whisper, shifting his eyes to the left and right to make sure no one else is around. He beckons Lance to come closer with a finger. Though looking decidedly more tense at that for whatever reason, Lance crawls over, so that he’s about eye level with his knees and Keith can lean down more easily.

 

“Okay, so…” Lance sets his face into apparently his best impression of being serious, which looks a lot like he’s constipated, and Keith hopes that maybe he’ll stop that soon or he may just start laughing again. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately…”

 

“Yeah?” Lance whispers back, so close Keith can feel the heat of his breath against his skin. Keith lowers his hood, feeling silly doing this with it still on.

 

“...well, mostly today actually, not really lately-lately, you know? It kind of just came up. And I was wondering…”

 

“Uh-huh…” Lance eagerly leans in a little closer, and Keith notices that his fingers are curling into the fabric of his pajama pants, as if Lance isn’t sure what else to do with his hands just then. 

 

Well, what else  _ should _ he be doing with his hands, exactly? Keith runs a sweaty palm through his hair. That’s a weird thought.

 

“...er, or more like, I was thinking…because I sort of just noticed...”

 

_ How pretty your eyes are. _

 

Keith shakes his head. No, focus, he needs to focus. He’s pretty sure that’s not what he’s trying to say right now.

 

Lance’s breath hitches, eyes lingering on his ruffling hair. “Right…”

 

Keith almost loses his train of thought completely after that inner derailment. They really are close, close like they were when they fought in the mud the other day, and Lance smells kinda nice. If he wanted to, he could even reach out and brush back that stray hair sticking up...

 

“...so, um, I mean, like I’m not sure, but I’m almost positive…”

 

Lance curses under his breath. His whispering voice cracks. “Keith, spit it out, the suspense is killing me.”

 

“Okay, but you’ve got to promise not to laugh, alright? This is important. And I also think I might be going a little crazy.”

 

Lance throws up his hands. “Oh my god, just say it already!”

 

“You. Have. To. Promise. First!” Keith grits slowly, emphasizing each word distinctly, because he has a feeling Lance isn’t taking him so seriously anymore.

 

“Fine, I promise, I promise. Now tell me.” Lance locks eyes with him, adds a gentle, “I’m listening.”

 

Keith cups a hand around his mouth, whispering in the lowest voice he can manage yet, “Dude, is it Christmas? I think it might be Christmas.”

 

Lance instantly deflates, clutching a hand over his chest and speaking a rapid prayer in Spanish that Keith gets the general gist of, having a decent grasp on the language from when he learned it back in high school - something dramatically along the lines of, _ ‘God, save me from this boy’ _ , or...something like that. Keith raises an eyebrow, hoping maybe that’s just a poor translation on his part.

 

Luckily, Lance switches back to English. “Jesus, Keith, what the fuck? You almost gave me a heart attack. What was so hard about saying that in the first place?!”

 

Keith shrugs, not sure what he’s even saying anymore, not sure what he’s doing anymore, but deciding to go with it. This is also a pressing matter, and Lance can just buckle down and deal with it. “I don’t know. I felt like...the atmosphere was just right for it.”

 

That worried, strange look is back on Lance’s face. “Maybe you should...try sleeping. I think you’re getting delirious.”

 

Keith narrows his eyes and crosses his arms, not liking being bossed around all of the sudden. “Don’t tell me what to do!” Lance pointedly stares at him. “Ok, uh, sorry. So maybe you have a point.”

 

He kicks his feet, pressing a finger to his chin, because he can’t let this go. “But I’m still pretty sure it’s Christmas or whatever. Like what was up with that yule log thing Hunk made for breakfast? Then there was a wreath made from computer parts on Red’s paw when I went to go visit her after lunch...And Rover came into my room earlier wearing a tiny santa hat and gave me...a whole bunch of...assortment of wires wrapped with a bow. They only left after playing an 8-bit version of  _ ‘We wish you a merry Christmas’ _ . I thought maybe I was hallucinating this big conspiracy everyone is in on or something. Or maybe just hallucinating in general, ‘cause why is Pidge making that robot tiny santa hats? That ain’t right.”

 

Getting more aggravated by the whole ordeal all over again, Keith claps his hands on Lance’s shoulders, angrily looking into his eyes. “Look, robots shouldn’t have tiny santa hats, Lance. That’s messed up. It’s not...it’s not ok.”

 

“Um,” Lance says, gently prying his hands off of him. “How about you get some water with me and call it a night, ok?”

 

“...okay, sure, fuck it. Why not. That sounds nice,” he agrees without fighting, feeling the weariness of the last two sleepless nights finally catching up to him. Coupled with the warm, relaxing feeling of Lance talking to him without being weird or a dick for the first time in what seems like forever, a strange sort of sedative effect has been working its way into his body, loosening his tongue along with his thoughts.

 

He jumps down from the window seat, wobbling unsteadily as he lands, to the point that Lance flings out his arms in front of him to spot him. Keith brushes past the offer, heading towards the kitchen. “But if it’s Christmas, shouldn’t I...give you all presents or something then? That’s what people usually do on Christmas, right?”

 

“Keith, it’s fine. You don’t have to get anyone a present. I’m not sure it’s actually even Christmas, so much as it’s…” Lance pauses in his sentence to remove the knife from his hand that he picked up from the counter, replacing it with a cup instead. Keith stares at it before realizing his mistake, though he thought that felt a little wrong.

 

“So much as it’s..?” Keith prompts, filling up his cup at the sink. 

 

“I think,” Lance says, twirling his own cup back and forth between his hands and throwing it up into the air as he talks, “I think everyone just misses being home, and this is their way of...being closer to what we left behind.”

 

Keith’s shoulders slump, a melancholy working its way through his bones and landing heavy in his heart. Lance comes over to turn off the water, and it’s only then that Keith notices he’d been overflowing his cup. As he stares into his water, taking a sip only to placate Lance, who’s watching him like a hawk now, he mulls over the fact that he doesn’t really understand what Lance is saying. There’s nothing that he was ever close to on Earth. It takes him a minute to admit how selfish of a thought that must be - of course, everyone else surely had something, or someone, they missed back on Earth. Most people would.

 

As an afterthought, Lance rambles on while filling his cup, “Oh, by the way, Pidge and Hunk are fucking around with you. They once convinced me it was Halloween in the middle of July when I was tired from exams and hadn’t slept for a while. I don’t know, it’s like some weird running joke they have. I figured that might be the case after I noticed some…fishy things going on around the ship today. Don’t worry about it too much. Also, heads up, there’s a giant, metal Christmas tree made out of various things from the ship in the training room.” Lance rubs a hand to his chin as he turns back around, squinting his eyes. “Signs point to it being Hunk’s doing…it’s actually pretty impressive, so I’m letting it slide.”

 

“Oh,” Keith says simply, feeling stupid, and oddly focused on Lance’s overall explanation. “Well I guess that explains a lot.” Before he can stop himself, he asks Lance something he only realizes sounds insensitive seconds after he’s already said it.  “Did you say that first thing cause there’s something you really miss..?”

 

Why did he ever think opening up to anyone would lead to good results when he’s such a socially inept mess? This is probably why Lance never wants to talk to him. He tries to backtrack, spilling his water as he waves his hand in front of him, but it’s too late. “Wait, you don’t have to answer that! That was rude of me. Nevermind, forget I even said--”

 

Lance takes a sip of water, leans back against the counter and lets his elbows rest on it. “‘Course I do. My family, first and foremost.” He sighs wistfully. “I really wish they were here.”

 

Keith freezes, hand still outstretched. “Ah.” He should have chosen the edgy route earlier, this isn’t where he wanted this conversation to end up at all. “Right. Family.” What a big thing to forget.

 

Lance seems to sense how uncomfortable he is. “Hey, it’s fine. Like you said that one time, everyone in the universe has families. Naturally, I’d miss them.”

 

Trying not to focus on the involuntary pang that sentence gives him, Keith thinks about the fact that Lance has always been pretty good at reading him. He wonders, for the millionth time in the past two weeks, why they haven’t been getting along more then. 

 

“Oh, yeah. Everyone has families. I...said that. Yup.” Oh, god. Where to go from there. Lance never falters in watching him, even as he drinks more, and the pressure is a bit overwhelming, despite how casual Lance is being. 

 

Wearily, Keith sits down on the floor, not sure he wants his legs to give out embarrassingly underneath him. Lance doesn’t question it. Keith sighs, looping a finger around the rim of his cup. Fuck it. Nothing left to lose.

 

“Hey, Lance.”

 

“...Yeah, buddy?”

 

“Do you want to tell me about them? You know. About your, uh, your family?”

 

Lance pauses mid-sip. He cocks his head at Keith, eyes roving carefully over him. Keith is sure he’s said something wrong, until a huge smile breaks out over Lance’s face. “You sure? It might take a while. I have a huge ass family.”

 

Keith stretches out his arms and gives a sheepish grin. “I think I’ve got some time.”

 

* * *

  
  
  
  
  
  


“Allura, come on, let them have their moment,” Shiro whispers, trying in vain to attempt to drag a cheering Allura away from the console of the control room. He’s definitely going to bribe Pidge later to do damage to this camera system, because this whole thing is getting completely out of control. 

 

On second thought, Pidge probably had something to do with putting it together in the first place. He sighs.

 

“But Shiro, look at them! They’re talking about something and neither is trying to beat the other up! They’re even smiling! My plan was a success!” 

 

Shiro sighs again. He still can’t believe that trope-filled plan was a success, but things keep getting crazier and crazier, and he’s learned since long ago that going with the flow of it is easier than going against it.

 

“Aw, what? Seriously? Locking them in a room together and killing the lights while raising the temperature doesn’t work, but Allura’s _ ‘remove water and suggest the kitchen’ _ plan worked? Fucking lame.”

 

Shiro starts his usual, “Pidge, language--” when he spins around to see both Pidge and Hunk suddenly standing at the entrance to the room. Hunk is wearing similar pajamas as Pidge, though his are green and have little eggnog cartons all over them. Shiro rubs his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. He’s too tired to deal with this shit.

 

“Whoah, sweet set up in here!” Hunk creeps towards the console, running his hands along the various controls, inspecting the blinking buttons and different nobs, “Kinda creepy, but wow. Such high definition video.”

 

Allura laces her fingers together in front of her, giving a slight bow. “Thanks! I had a little help from Pidge. We had a _ ‘girl’s night out’ _ , as you all call it, before we landed on Androgia. Pidge taught me all about what Earth girls do at sleepovers! It was really fun.”

 

Pidge chuckles and salutes her. “Anytime, Princess.”

 

Hunk shares a look with Shiro. Shiro doesn’t bother speaking up, being distinctly reminded of, and still distraught by Allura’s motherly impression of him earlier, as well as too exhausted from dealing with how energetic she’s been all night, so he lets Hunk take over.

 

“Uhh, I’ve never been to a girl’s sleepover before, obviously, but I don’t think that’s what--”

 

Pidge stomps on Hunk’s foot, abruptly cutting him off. “So, did they make out yet, or what?”

 

“‘Make out’? What is that?” Allura asks innocently, “Is that like a bonding custom between friends?”

 

Hunk makes a strangled noise at the same time that Shiro claps a hand to his head. 

 

“Oh, boy.” Pidge adjusts her glasses and takes a deep breath. “Well, actually, you’re not wro--”

 

Shiro goes right against his decision to stay out of this. He grabs Pidge by the cuff of her sweatshirt and claps a hand over her mouth while pulling her away from the screen, as well as swats at Hunk’s hands fiddling with the controls after he puts Pidge down.

 

“Alright, guys, that’s it, party’s over.” His gaze shifts sternly over to Allura, which he can’t bring himself to do for long, so he settles it back to Pidge. “It’s not nice to spy on people’s  _ private _ moments. I thought you knew better than to resort to this, Pidge.”

 

Pidge makes some muffled complaints against his hand, and Shiro removes his clasp over her.

 

“What?! That’s not fair! Allura was doing it fir--”

 

“Look, I don’t want to hear it. It’s too late for this. We all should be in bed anyway, we have a big day tomorrow landing on the new planet. Clearly, we’re all still pretty tired from the last mission, so it’s important to get some rest.”

 

Pidge crosses her arms and stares him down, drawls a sarcastic, “Whatever, Mom.”

 

Seriously, where in the world is Coran? Making popcorn? Is he the only one with any remaining sanity left here? Why does everyone keep insinuating that he’s a mom?!

 

Allura falls into a mild pout, but she moves to flip off the switch to the screen, settling back into a responsible leader’s role. Shiro breathes a sigh of relief. “Ah, Shiro’s right. My work here is done, and it’s best we let them have some real time alone. Let’s go, everyone. You two mentioned a fat, old man in a big red suit is coming tomorrow or something, didn’t you? Why don’t you all tell me more, I’m very interested in knowing all about this mysterious man.”

 

“Ohhh yeah,” Pidge says around a giggle, “Santa’s coming, we’d better get to bed.”

 

In that very moment, Shiro feels like the human embodiment of the emotion of being so fucking over it. 

 

Hunk shuffles and agrees, though he mentions repeatedly that Pidge dragged him here with the promise of snacks and he had no actual part in this, in case anyone was wondering.

 

“Wait!” Pidge shouts, pivoting around as if remembering some urgent thing. “Just...wait for it. They’re moving down the hallway now, which means they’re going to walk under _ it  _ soon.”

 

Allura pauses, intrigued, and Shiro waits, wondering what she means. Even Hunk abashedly turns to stare at the screen.

 

* * *

 

  
  


“...and that’s when  Fernán got us all banned from Disney World for life. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was all definitely worth it. The only thing that kinda sucked was the fact that my mom never let us go on a family trip outside the country after that again.” Lance waves a hand, giving a so-so motion. “Besides allowing me to enlist in the Garrison, that is. I don’t think that really counts though.”

 

Lance can’t remember having heard Keith laugh or see him smile this much, but the more he tells him stories about his family, the more guilty he feels for not having tried to make him happy rather than piss him off all this time.

 

He hadn’t realized until now how hard of a time Keith must be having himself lately. He hasn’t felt this ashamed about anything since he lied to his mother about his grades, and even that pales in comparison to the way he’s be acting towards everyone. 

 

However, with every giggle, Keith seems to gain a little more life back in him. Even the color of his skin is taking on a healthier, rosier looking shade. Through it all, Lance notices something different in every laugh, cataloguing all of Keith’s little quirks and mannerisms -- how Keith often raises a hand to politely cover his mouth, how sometimes when he laughs harder his shoulders shake and his cheeks instantly redden, how he snorts occasionally and wrinkles his nose.

 

“Wow, I guess he really lived up to his name, then, huh?” Keith responds, brushing back some stray, frizzy strands of hair that have fallen across his face and tucking them neatly behind his ear.

 

“Yeah, he’s really something,” Lance reminisces on his older brother fondly, before he realizes the insinuation of what Keith said. He freezes mid-stride down the hallway. “Wait, do you know--”

 

Lance spots something red and green glittering above them on the ceiling, grabbing his attention before he can finish his sentence. His eyes narrow, annoyance rising in his veins. Stretching up as inconspicuously as he can to grab the dreaded thing, he resumes walking with Keith, who isn’t paying much attention anyway, gaze captured by the wide window of stars they’re walking past at that moment. Lance isn’t sure why, but he feels like he’s being watched, so he flips off the air at whatever sneaky little shit is probably spying on them, and crumples the thing in his hand before tossing it to the ground.

 

Keith unfortunately catches the tail end of the movement of his arm. He cocks an eyebrow. “What...were you just doing?”

 

“Uh, nothing. It’s nothing!” Lance spreads his arms and legs to do a few jumping jacks, then does some quick arm flexes. “Just, doing some before bed stretches, you know, the usual routine.”  _ Smooth catch. _

 

Keith frowns, fiddling with the drawstrings of his sweatshirt. They’re approaching his room, which is a few doors down from Lance’s.

 

Lance nervously feels put on the spot, like they’re parting after a particularly awkward date. He can feel Keith’s eyes hot on him, calculating, waiting -- for what, exactly, he isn’t so sure. He’s flinging up the hood of his sweatshirt again, pulling tight at the drawstrings, shoving his hands into his pockets. Lance tries not to lose it for the millionth time that night over how utterly adorable he is. He mutters a hurried goodbye, thanks Lance for listening to his  _ ‘stupid shit’ _ . His foot reaches the sensor of the door.

 

Lance doesn’t know why his mouth opens, but his head is a jumble of weird dreams, of guilt, of homesickness. He’s realizing, through the craziness of this thing called life, that moments like this are really, truly fleeting. That the time he might not take to cherish the relationships he has could end up being his greatest regret one day, that these connections with his teammates could just as easily be cruelly ripped away from him at any moment without warning as well.

 

“Hey, Keith, wait up a tick.”

 

Keith turns around, frown boring spikes into Lance’s heart. He’s looking suddenly infinitely smaller in that overlarge hoodie, with his baggy sweatpants engulfing his thin legs, and his pale, bare feet peeking out beneath them.

 

“I just wanted you to know…” He pushes through the urge to flee before he speaks his mind, voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t actually hate you.”

 

Keith’s eyes grow wide, stopping dead in his tracks. He’s pushing down his hood to get a clearer look at Lance, but Lance doesn’t stick around to listen to what Keith might say next.

 

With one hurdle he crosses, another emerges.

 

He doesn’t have the courage to stay and face a response yet.

 

* * *

 

  
  
  


“Ugh, what a rip-off. It didn’t work, stupid Lance,” Pidge laments, kicking at the ground. “Whatever. I’m going to bed. This night was a total bust. So glad it’s Christmas tomorrow.”

 

“Pidge, it’s not Christmas,” Shiro says wearily as he ushers them all out, shutting the power down on the system before he walks through the door.

 

“Anyday can be Christmas in Space, Shiro,” she shoots back.

 

Allura laughs, meeting Shiro’s gaze and winking. She smiles gently, makes a motion of zipping up her lips for him to not to say anything more as she places an arm around Pidge and fluffs her hair fondly. 

 

“Yeah, Shiro. It’s Christmas in our hearts, man,” Hunk adds, beating at his chest. “Don’t worry, we got you a present, so don’t feel like you’re left out.”

 

“...I guess you’re right. And thanks, Hunk. I appreciate that.

 

Shiro shakes his head and grins back at Allura, letting the tension flow out of him. After all, he already had the time of his life with Allura, and then some. He holds metal fingers up to brush his cheek, wonders if it was all a silly dream.

 

As they walk the two younger paladins back to their rooms, Shiro thinks that if he replaced every word with him sighing instead, it would have about the same effect as him wasting his breath trying to fight against the weird little misfits that make up their team.

 

* * *

 

  
  


The next morning rolls around uneventfully, with an uncharacteristically relaxed atmosphere about the ship. Allura even lets them sleep in a little, before announcing over the speaker that they’re about to arrive at the next planet on their list, Komium. Lance cringes at the peppy, 8-bit version of ‘ _ Rocking around the Christmas Tree _ ’ that follows her announcement, and focuses on what may be waiting for them on Komium. 

 

Allura explained a few days before that it must have been a relatively newly colonized planet, as she had grown up knowing only its name, as it was deserted at the time. They had no info at all about the sorts of lifeforms that were now inhabiting it, so she warned them to be prepared for anything. In stark contrast to Androgia, the planet was massive and bright yellow, with huge, rainbow colored rings encircling it.

 

They’re all lounging around in their suits, killing time as they wait to land. Having had a decent night’s sleep for once, Lance is enjoying his time that is most likely another calm before the storm before they have to be all ‘responsible and save the universe’ again.

 

He’s also cooly been trying to ignore the fact that everyone is now officially accepting today as being Christmas, and that the ship has exploded into an array of junky looking decorations made from scrap metal. Everyone is looking well rested, so he suspects that Pidge programmed Rover to put most of it together while they were sleeping. 

 

He can’t believe Allura is encouraging it all and allowing them to go out with santa hats attached to their helmets in the name of  _ ‘spreading and celebrating their own culture’ _ .

 

“You know what I miss a lot?” Hunks voice breaks through above the other conversations taking place. “Besides like, kittens, family, food that’s actually solid, and 80’s glam rock, obviously.”

 

“Oh, what?” Having been leaning casually against the wall, legs and arms loosely crossed with both eyes closed, Lance lazily cracks one open as he overhears Hunk and Pidge’s conversation. “You’re still into that glam thing, Hunk? Huh.”

 

“Man, when did I ever fall  _ out of it _ ?”

 

“Good point.”

 

“Anyway, like I was saying. The internet. That’s what I really miss. I’d love to watch some cat videos right about now.” He looks over his shoulder, calling to Coran. “Hey, do you guys have like, the equivalent of space internet or something like that? You know, like an overarching network of information you can access at a moment’s notice about anything in the entire known universe?”

 

Coran twirls his mustache as the three paladins wait eagerly for his response.

 

“Well, there’s the universal public shuttle transit system! Though it’s not exactly safe and isn’t updated to hyperspace jumps, so the average journey between planets can take up to a few of your Earth years.” All of them collectively sigh. “Oh, but on the plus side, it’s very cheap! Practically free!”

 

“Naw, that’s...not really what I meant.” Despondently, Hunk hangs his head. “But thanks for that, I guess.”

 

“Yo, Merry Christmas, everyone.” Keith strides into the room and over to their group, looking brighter than usual. The bags from under his eyes have noticeably receded. Everyone but Lance cheers an enthusiastic ‘Merry Christmas’ back at him. “What’s going on?”

 

“Existential dread,” Hunk says dramatically, still mourning the fact he can’t watch cat videos. The poor guy, Lance knows how much he liked those. Pidge claps a comforting hand at Hunk’s back. 

 

“Oh, cool.” Keith raises a brow. “I...think..?”

 

Lance almost groans when he notices Keith’s wearing a Santa hat, too. Despite this, he catches the snooty glare Keith shoots Rover and their own tiny santa hat as he passes by them.

 

The glare falls as those bright eyes land on him. “Hey, Lance.” Keith flashes a tiny smile, waving a hand in greeting, and a part of Lance dies inside. He becomes greatly aware of his posture for some reason, straightening up and pushing away from the wall. Smoothing a quick hand over his hair, his entire body grows insurmountably hotter. A bunch of strange thoughts bombard him one after another. Does he smell okay? Is his hair sticking up at all? Why the hell does he care? Is he getting sick?

 

“Oh, uh, h-hey dude, what’s up?”

 

Keith rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet, fiddling with his hands. “Not much, you?”

 

“I’m...I’m good.”

 

Keith smiles wider. “That’s good, I’m glad.”

 

Hunk raises his drooping head to curiously watch them - and he’s not the only one. Lance sees Coran crane his neck and Shiro and Allura pause in whatever they’ve been discussing.

 

“Uh, are you guys alright?” Hunk’s voice snaps Lance out of the odd trance he’s found himself lost in from staring at Keith’s face for far longer than is probably appropriate.

 

Pidge clears her throat. “While we’re on the topic of the internet, I’d like to say how much I miss memes,” She sighs, drawing attention away from the strange exchange between the two. Lance is thankful for that.

 

“You are a meme, short stuff,” Lance teases, pulling her into a headlock and giving a mild noogie. It makes Keith laugh, so he has no intention of stopping anytime soon.

 

“Ugh, get off of me! You’re so heavy.” Pidge tries wriggling out of his grasp, successful only as she jabs a pointy elbow right into his gut. What a cheap shot. Lance doubles over, the sharp pain making him wheeze and bringing tears to his eyes. 

 

“Serves you right,” She sniffs. “And if  _ I’m _ a meme, then _ you’re _ obviously a fucking shitpost, Lance.”

 

“Oof, ow, t-thanks.”

 

“Not really a compliment,” she deadpans.

 

“Shitpost?” Keith asks. “I mean, yeah, I know what a meme is. But what’s that?”

 

They all stare at him for a while. Probably tired of being stared at, Keith shrugs and reminds them exasperatedly, “Desert, guys. There was no internet out there either.”

 

“...Right, right. Sorry man. How do we keep forgetting that?” Hunk stares off, cupping a hand to his chin like he does when he’s in deep thought.

 

“Pfft, how could you forget that trainwreck?” Lance looks directly at Keith, lips curving up with a laugh, “He had a conspiracy board and a table with cinderblocks for legs! That shit was hilarious.”

 

As expected, Keith’s huffiness returns in full force, like nothing ever remotely calm and civil happened between them before. Okay, so maybe there is something he gets out of making Keith mad that’s similar to when he sees him laugh. He tries not to think about it too much.

“Wow, fuck you too, Lance.”

 

“Oh-ho,” Lance waggles his eyebrows, words he should probably never, ever say coming out against his better judgment. “Not in front of everyone, dude. Later, okay?” 

 

The finger gun he meant to shoot at Keith dies before his fingers fully form it, instead clapping over his stupid big mouth. He can almost hear his mother gently reprimanding him for it with a tired, ‘ _ Mijo, too much information again _ ’. He definitely agrees with her phantom spirit, especially as Hunk and Pidge pull simultaneous faces at the very gay turn their conversation has unexpectedly taken.

 

Keith flushes, raising his bayard as if to impulsively challenge him to a fight (though the santa hat takes much of the edge off the intimidation factor of it) but Pidge gets between them, embarrassing both with her proclamation of, “Ugh. Guys, spare me. We’re almost there, save the flirting for later so I don’t vomit all over these new aliens.”

 

Lance waves placating hands up in front of him, wondering if there’s a way he can rewind his entire life. “I-it was a joke, chill, it was only a joke!”

 

Keith retracts his bayard wordlessly, Lance rubs an arm and looks away. Pidge turns towards Keith, saving them from the tension as quickly as she creates it. Lance has to hand it to her, she’s a genius at diversion. She puts up her pointer finger like she’s some teacher explaining a very serious theory, gesturing with her other hand towards Lance as if he’s part of her presentation.

 

“Look, all you need to know about shitposts, Keith, is that they’re the equivalent of if we took  _ all _ of Lance’s shitty personality,” she makes a wide circular motion in the air over his entire body, “and condensed it into written form.”

 

“Oh,” Lance mutters, frowning, realizing that doesn’t sound as good with that explanation. “Yeah, I now see why I should find that offensive.”

 

He thinks he should be more annoyed, maybe try to defend his honor even, but Keith seems amused by it, so he decides to let it go. In any case, the ship makes its descent right then, and they all file down to the lower deck at Allura’s command. A serious undertone lifts away the lightness of the morning as they prepare for some equally as fucked up shit on Komium, or maybe something worse. Right before they leave the hull after they land, Lance sneaks one more glance at Keith, who returns a wary, worried stare of his own.

 

He doesn’t know why, but he wishes they weren’t around the others, because the urge to grab Keith’s hand and give it a reassuring squeeze is overwhelmingly strong. Gross.

 

The sight that meets their eyes as they draw out into the dusty twilight of Komium, however, is one that none of them could have anticipated or prepared for by a longshot.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smh Lance, you better be careful about what you say in Spanish around Keith….you can’t be ‘Dios me libre de este chico’-ing him so casually, cause that boy be knowin’ (seriously, what next? dios me libre de este amor? Whoo boy...)
> 
> Btw, the name ‘Fernán’ means ‘brave/adventurous’. Chosen because I felt like it was a very fitting name for one of Lance’s siblings. I hope I can write a little more about his family in the future, because I have a lot of fun headcanons about them!
> 
> ANYWAY
> 
> I slaved over this chapter, my blood sweat and tears and all that jazz ya’ll, and it’s been my favorite to write so far! I hope everyone enjoys it at least half as much as I enjoyed writing it, cause boy did it get long. I swear, every scene was….very necessary…. 
> 
> Moth and I figured it’s high past time that Keith finally gets a little love, support, and acceptance, because tbh, he’s suffered enough in his life (and boy have these past few weeks been rough ones for him let’s give the lil sulky mullet a break). 
> 
> Writing Lance’s slow character development has been a real pleasure, but I feel like all the characters are developing in their own fun ways as well. Speaking of development, this next planet arc is my favorite (and probably Moth’s too, we’ve been excited about it ever since we planned it a while ago). Komium is a real...trip, to say the least. Exciting things coming soon! Moth’s next chapter is sure to be a blast~


	9. Have Yourself a Merry Little Keithmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The philosophy of Santa hats.

The first thing that really catches Keith’s eye when they land on Komium is the garb that its people are wearing. Similar to those of the Androgians, their bodies are draped in long, flowing robes. However, that’s really the only similarity that Keith can find, as these aren’t quite as ornate, or even as colorful, and seem to be fastened at the waist instead of falling loosely and obscuring their figures.

The people of this planet also apparently have genders — as the more masculine aliens have exposed chests, sculpted muscle seeming to be uniform among their kind. The feminine of their race wear colorful makeup around the eyes, swatches of purples and blues standing out stark against their pale, yellow skin. He isn’t sure if they’ve covered themselves in glitter, or if the sparkling textures of their flesh is natural under their single, massive sun. Bright yellow irises glow up at him, contrasted by sclera so deep and black that he feels as though he’s gazing down at hundreds of fake skeleton props at some kind of twinkling, ridiculously prim and proper Halloween store.

Each face staring up at him, despite how obviously alien they appear, is hauntingly beautiful. Each smile seems purposefully chiseled into marble.

Allura steps forward and introduces them, her voice strong and confident as it carries over the crowd. An alien, shorter and stockier than his brethren, parts through throngs of Komians, and Keith notices immediately how they move for him. He pins this one as their leader. His smile is broad and cocky, his golden eyes glinting mischievously as he sweeps out his arms in a wide, dramatic bow.

“Righteous,” he says, a twang to his voice that Keith thinks might be more commonplace on the beaches of California back on Earth, “You got our signal, yeah? So the prophecy really knows its shit, dudes. I can’t believe that it even brought a hot babe!”

Keith waits for their  _ real _ leader to come forward and swat this idiot upside the head, but the aliens surrounding him only nod in astonished agreement. A few of the females swoon, cooling off with the shallow flick of decorative paper fans and whispering amongst themselves.

“U-uh… I — ” Allura clears her throat, a hand clutched at her chest as she looks around at all of the unfamiliar faces, suddenly unsure, “I — I am Princess Allura of Altea. These are the Paladins of Voltron. We’ve come to answer your distress signal.”

The Komian waves a hand in the air before pulling it back and fiddling with the crown atop his head. It’s a sparkling, golden thing — pressed leaves wound together like the headdresses of all of the Greek statues that Keith remembers seeing in his history textbooks.

With that thought, the entire image finally ties together — the robes that look more like togas. The cityscape looming above them: white marble pillars, stories of battles long-past engraved deep into the stone. The stupid little leaf crowns. Their apparent leader’s horrid accent. 

He reaches out to grab Allura by the shoulder, to warn her, to do something, but it’s too late. The Komian leader begins to speak again.

“Babe,” he tells her, drawing nearer and taking her hand in his, “We’ve been blaring that ratty ass distress signal for almost five hundred giznons now. The prophecies, dude, they told us that a bodacious babe and her sick homies would come to chill with us one day — dude, I’m, like, so stoked that it was us. Like my dad totally thought that it would be his generation, but he was wrong,  _ obvs _ . This is totally an honor, dudes. And now we gotta party.”

Allura stares at the Komian leader as though he’s having a stroke — the terror and pity mingling with the disgust in her expression in a way that might be hilarious if Keith weren’t already hating this mission, this planet, and basically everyone here. He looks around at the other Paladins, wondering if he’s actually the first one to understand a reference for once.

That seems to be the case. Honestly, he’s a little disappointed that Lance hasn’t caught on yet.

Whatever this is, be it a lucid fever dream, or the universe’s sick idea of a joke, it seems as though they’ve stumbled upon an entire planet full of frat boys.

“P-party?!” Out of all of the things wrong with this guy’s horrendous speech, Allura seems to have to decided to get stuck on that, “W-why would you party? Why have you been broadcasting a distress signal for so many…  _ giznons _ …? What in the universe is going on here?!”

The Komian leader laughs, loud and hearty, clutching at his belly as the surrounding Komians hesitantly join in. When he finishes, he wipes the tears from the corners of his eyes, letting out a long breath and turning that snarky smile back up at Allura.

“We’ve been in  _ dire _ need of a good party, dude,” he tells her, still not letting go of her hand, “Hell,  _ I’ve _ been in distress over it, really. You know how hard it is to host a good kegger around this joint? It’s always gotta be sacred, bro. There’s always gotta be like some holy reason to tear your shit up on some mad elixir, but the Paladins of Voltron finally crashin’ down here for a jam? That seems like a good ass reason to get crazy.”

Allura’s brow twitches, and she pries her hand away, taking a few hurried steps back for good measure. Both Coran and Shiro step forward as though to defend her honor, and while Keith definitely notices how awkwardly they bump into one another, he tells himself that he’ll ponder that more later. A sly grin is beginning to curl around Lance’s lips, and Keith tells himself that he isn’t feeling proud of the idiot for finally figuring it out — and he definitely doesn’t feel a swell of something warm aching along the inside of his chest at the sight of that adorable, albeit foreboding glint of teeth that peeks through.

“Dude, it’s our  _ religion _ , man,” The Komian leader continues, “If the tales of Voltron are anywhere near true, you guys gotta respect our religion, right?”

This seems to create more questions than answers, and Allura seems to be losing her cool more and more by the second.

“Oh, yeah, right,” The Komian fiddles more with his crown, “I’m Thadiar, by the way, babe, but you — ”

A waggle of his eyebrow. A feral grin aimed right up at Allura that has Shiro readying for a fight.

“You can call me Thad.”

Keith can’t stop the rogue giggle that escapes his lips at the sheer ridiculousness of this situation — with all of them standing around here like a bunch of idiots in shitty fake Santa hats, Allura sputtering as she struggles to piece together what sort of alternate dimension that they must have stumbled into, Shiro eagerly jumping to defend her at any sour turn, in a silent battle with Coran to do so first, and the Komians themselves, such a caricature of any drunken college kid in any college-themed stoner flick that Keith had ever had the misfortune of watching back home, somehow seeming to be the most functional and knowledgeable of anyone here.

Hurriedly, he masks his laughter with a cough. Lance sends him a knowing grin, eyes slits as he raises a hand to cover his own smile. 

“I-I don’t understand any of this,” Allura breathes, the color draining from her face as she leans back against Coran for comfort, “None of this makes any sense at all.”

Thad shrugs, finally settling on a lopsided position for his crown and deciding to fiddle with his toga instead.

“Alright sweetheart,” he says, and even Keith dislikes the sound of that coming out of his mouth, “Basically, our Gods told us that any time that something good happens, we party. Any time something bad happens, we party. It’s kind of our _ religion, _ you know? Kind of like the whole reason why we exist. And some mad talented prophets like a bajillion giznons ago said that one day, this big ass group of lions and a hot babe would fall out of the sky, and when they arrived, we were supposed to have the most rad party ever. We’ve been _ preparing _ for you, dogs. We’ve been settin’ this shit up for mad long giznons! My grandpa used to tell me that I’d do some gnarly shit in my life, but I never would have thought that I’d be the king who’d meet Voltron.”

Keith contemplates the viability of an entire planet whose only purpose is to let loose and have fun. He’s considered doing the same thing for so long, and now that the opportunity is right in front of him, he’s really not sure if he wants it. 

The small taste that Androgia had given him was enough to convince him that fun might not really be his thing after all. Maybe Lance is always hyping it up too much. Maybe no one enjoys letting loose as much as they let on. 

He’s more than content to tell the Komians to shove their party up their asses and make their way onto more important planets, but then Lance is talking, and Hunk is backing him up, and Keith realizes that no one else on the team really seems to share his sentiment on this.

“Allura, we have to stay.”

“Yeah man, it’s Christmas! We should have a Christmas party!”

“Y-yeah, definitely Christmas, Allura! It’s a really serious human custom. It’s part of our religion too. Could you really live with yourself if you denied all of us and all of the Komians their religious right?”

Allura has finally regained her footing, and she’s looking as though Lance and Hunk are trying to convince her to eat a live beetle. Nose crinkled, frown pulling tightly over her lips, she looks to Shiro as though he might be able to come up with some reason why none of this is a good idea at all. 

Unfortunately, Shiro only shrugs.

“Uh, well,” he places a hand on the back of his neck, cheeks dusted pink, “You did say that part of Voltron’s mission was to forge bonds with other planets. I don’t see why staying for a night would hurt.”

Lance and Hunk cheer, and even Pidge’s smile broadens. With a sigh, Allura pulls herself away from the group, straightening her shoulders and forcing a smile as she speaks with Thad.

“Well… I guess… it wouldn’t hurt to divulge you. People of Komium, Voltron cordially accepts your invitation for celebration.”

Everything else after that is a bit of a blur. The Komians cheer. They rush around, they herd up the Paladins and push them into one of the many uniform, columned buildings. 

Keith can’t shake the feeling that all of this is a very, very bad idea.

He can’t quite stop imagining Garmak’s smile, the soft words, and the memory of the last time that he’d told himself that it would be okay to let his guard down.

 

* * *

 

“Do you always feel up cute guys before you get to know them, or am I just special?”

The Komian woman pauses as she pins Lance’s toga in place, a small smile creeping along her lips as she flutters her eyelashes and peers up at him. He notices the smattering of freckles along the the apples of her cheeks, the dark curls framing her face. Her nose looks familiar — the straight bridge, the slight upturn, the small bulb of nostrils, and he refuses to acknowledge who else he knows who has a cute nose like that. 

Despite the fact that the asshole in question is standing in another booth less than three feet away from him, calling him an idiot just loud enough that everyone can hear it.

“It’s my job to feel up cute guys,” the Komian tells him, “But with these rockin’ muscles? You’re, like, totally my favorite.”

There’s a thump in the next stall, a hissed curse, and another Komian girl telling Keith to be careful and not bump his elbows again.

“I’m Bex, by the way,” she tells him, pulling away her long, nimble fingers to tuck a curl behind her pointed ear, “It’s, like, totally an honor to be fitting your toga. I’m super freaking out right now.”

Grasping her hand as she pulls it away from her hair, Lance brings it to his face, ghosting his lips along her knuckles.

“The honor is all mine,” he tells her, “It’s not every day that I get to be felt up by such a beautiful lady.”

Mentally, he pats himself on the back for using such a stellar pick-up line, but he can hear Keith groaning miserably from the other booth. Even Pidge joins in, some ways away, and he forces himself to stay cool and bite back the urge to tell them off for cramping his style.

Bex giggles nonetheless, a strange, orange flush working under her skin. She tugs her hand away, shooting him a wry smile, before pushing open the door of their booth.

“Come find me at the party later,” she tells him, pressing her lips against her fingers and blowing a kiss in his direction, “I’ll be waiting for you.”

He might be imagining the foreboding aura emanating from Keith’s stall, or the whispered insults about bimbo alien girls who don’t know what kind of trouble they’re getting themselves into, but to Lance, honestly…

Keith’s jealousy is the best payback for whatever the Hell happened back on Androgia that he can imagine.

And he intents to milk it for all that it’s worth.

 

* * *

 

The party seems to be a lot less fancy than what Allura was expecting, that much is true. 

She’s seated herself at the end of a long dining table placed within a gazebo near the edge of town square, glowering into a long-stemmed glass of bubbling, neon-green liquid as she watches the Komians shuffling about and hanging decorations. They wouldn’t even let her help, no matter how many times she’d insisted, and Shiro can’t figure out if that’s why she’s pouting, or if she’s simply determined that this entire thing is one gigantic waste of time.

Carefully, he takes a seat next to her, sending her a comforting smile as she spares him a look.

“Hey, come on,” he says slowly, ghosting a hand over her shoulder, “I think this will be good for the team. It’ll be good for Voltron. We form an alliance with another planet, everyone has fun, what’s the harm in that?”

She moves so quickly that she catches him off-guard, downing her drink in one go and slamming the glass onto the table. Just as quickly, a random Komian scurries forward and refills the glass, gone before he can even thank them.

“I just don’t understand,” she sighs, falling back against her seat and baring her throat to the room, “This planet was uninhabited while I was growing up. I remember hearing stories about different civilizations fighting for the right to Komium. My father was chair of the board that decided that this planet would be free to develop at its own pace.”

She takes another sip of her drink, eyes traveling about the different Komians — setting large plates of covered food onto the table, mixing alien alcohol with other drinks in oversized punch bowls.

“In ten thousand years, the treaty was broken. Someone landed on this planet and created a civilization, which… became  _ this _ . In such a short span of time, these people managed to degrade their own customs. They became lazy, and self-centered — a planet which functions only for carnal needs, only to service itself — ”

“Hey, hey,” Shiro cuts her off gently, finally gathering the strength to place a hand on her shoulder, “It’s different, yeah, but… That doesn’t mean that it’s wrong. Their customs might seem a little silly to us, but we need to allow them to make their own mistakes. If it works for them, then we really have no place to judge. Shouldn’t Voltron represent every planet, even if we don’t exactly understand them? Isn’t that part of being a good leader?”

He thinks back to Lance and Keith, wondering if he’s been pushing too hard. Guilt floods into him as Allura finishes off her drink. He wonders if he should have kept Lance’s outburst to himself, if he should have reeled in the rest of the team and forced them to allow Lance to work out his emotions on his own terms.

Shaking those thoughts away, he takes a deep breath. The sign that the Komians are hanging from a building directly across from them is written in a foreign hand, but he appreciates the little cartoonish lions that they’ve drawn between the text. Everyone seems to be so alive, so excited, and he can’t say that he isn’t a little thrilled to be welcomed so eagerly. 

This will be good for all of them, he thinks. Even Allura, if she can allow it to be.

 

* * *

 

Hunk didn’t do a lot of partying back home, but he’s definitely no stranger to pre-gaming. He understands the nuances of partying well enough to realize that the first hour or so is usually extremely awkward unless you’re already on your way to getting pretty trashed.

With that in mind, he throws back a glass of some strange, orange liquid that the Komians are mixing up in a gigantic punch bowl, eyeing Allura and Shiro warily all the way at the end of the long, crowded table under the gazebo. He isn’t sure if Shiro condones this sort of thing or not, or if he’d rather have all of them drinking lame space juice and having G-rated fun. It’s probably better, he reasons, to be a little discreet about it, just in case Shiro decides to be an adult and ruin it for everyone. 

As he’s pouring himself another glass, he can see Coran winding through the crowd of busy Komians. He readies himself for another bet, as per what’s become their usual. He’s won the last few — silly, mundane things, like whether or not Keith would kiss Lance under the mistletoe, if Lance might say a certain thing over breakfast, or if Keith might react to Lance’s stupid jokes in a some manner, and he really isn’t entirely sure why Coran is still trying at this point. 

An entire month of cooking privileges feels like heaven in space, but he has to admit that he’s getting a little sick of always winning the same thing. 

“Hunk,” Coran greets, as he finally reaches the table, stopping only to eye the liquid within Hunk’s glass warily, yet wordlessly, “I imagine that you know why I’m here.”

With a sigh, Hunk sets down his glass, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand as the sugary sweet flavor of his drink fizzles against his tongue.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, “Isn’t it getting kind of boring, you know, always losing?”

Coran tucks his hands behind his back, looking around as though someone who understands their bets might actually be close enough to listen in, as though anyone actually cares enough about any of this to do that.

“Patience is key, you know,” Coran tells him, back straight, brows high, mustache just a little bit frazzled from his constant fiddling with it, “And I believe that tonight might be my lucky night, so I’ve decided to raise the stakes!”

After downing his second drink, Hunk begins to feel the warmth of his buzz settling into the pit of his belly. His cheeks feel hotter, vision blurring at the edges as he takes a moment to contemplate what Coran has just told him. It’s a little boring, sure, but it’s not like he has anything else going on right now. 

“Y-yeah, sure, whatever,” he drones, filling up another glass, “What is it this time? No more chores? Do I get the bathroom all to myself for some allotted time?”

“Better than that,” Coran’s voice is low and predatory. He seems to think that he has the upperhand here, “Winner gets to decide what the loser does for an entire day. As though, perhaps, the loser were to be the winner’s personal slave.”

This sounds like something straight out of a sitcom, and Hunk almost asks Coran if he’s been sneaking and broadcasting Earth television shows into the castle late at night. It’s illogical, sure, but no one has ever claimed that Coran  _ wasn’t _ capable of doing something stupid like that. Maybe Altea just shared the same kind of trash-TV that he remembers from Earth. 

“Sure, yeah, okay,” he says, non-committal as he sips some of his new drink, “What’s the bet though?”

A sly smile, and Coran finally reaches up a hand to soothe his mustache. He spares a look in Shiro and Allura’s direction, and both of them pause for a moment to watch the awkward way in which Shiro ghosts his hand over Allura’s shoulder.

Ugh. It looks like Lance isn’t the only one who needs a little bit of romantic help around here.

He doesn’t even want to think about that right now. 

“Just a kiss,” Coran tells him, “It may seem unlikely, but back in Altea’s glory-days, I used to be known as The  _ Coranimal _ — capable of stalking my prey in a betting game and not making my move until I was ensured victory! It’s a funny story, really. One time, I — ”

“Yeah, I, uh, I gotta go.”

He isn’t sure where he’s going, or what he’s going to do, but sitting around, getting drunk by himself and listening to Coran prattle on is definitely not his idea of a good night. 

If anything, he might as well find Lance. Nothing could be worse than this. 

 

* * *

 

Hunk was absolutely wrong. Many things could have been worse than “this”, but Pidge has no way of knowing what he’d just been thinking. 

She creeps up behind him, shielded by one of the thick columns of the gazebo, and waits until he’s stumbled out onto the unearthly, gray and purple sand before reaching out and grasping the sleeve of his toga. 

He turns around and freaks out a little belatedly, and it takes Pidge a moment to notice how glassy his eyes look, or how out of place the flush against his cheeks really is. With a roll of her eyes, she lets go of his sleeve, readjusting her Santa hat atop her head before cluing him in on why she grabbed him.

“P-Pidge, w-what the quiznak, dude! You almost gave me a heart attack! I-I have a sensitive heart, Pidge. You could’ve killed me!”

Rover beeps and hums behind her, still festive in its Santa hat, along with a cute little paper-leaf crown that one of the fitting girls had crafted for it. It’s weighed down by so many headdresses, but Pidge can’t bring herself to remove either of them. It’s honestly a little cute — or as cute as a repurposed Galra security drone can really be.

“Listen,” she hisses, grabbing him by the front of the toga and pulling him down to her level, “I need your help.”

Hunk shakes his head hurriedly, waving his hands in front of him in a show of surrender.

“I-if this is more m-meddling, P-Pidge, I can’t do it, man. I can’t keep — ”

“I know that you’re making bets with Coran,” she tells him, tone firm as she cuts off his pathetic whimpering, “Lance wouldn’t really be very happy if he found out about that either, would he?”

He snaps his mouth shut, swaying slightly as he pries himself free from her grip and straightens out. Leaning against the pillar to steady himself, Pidge can easily spot the terror working its way beneath his glassy eyes — the realization that he and Coran must not have been being as sneaky as he’d originally thought.

As though he didn’t realize that Pidge has eyes everywhere on the ship. 

“Come with me,” she tells him, grasping the sleeve of his toga once again, “I want to show you something.”

She leads him through a labyrinth of towering buildings, of Greek-style gardens and statues that look far too much like alien parodies of ancient Greek artwork for Pidge’s liking. She feels as though this entire planet is playing some sort of prank on all of them, but she reasons that with so many planets inhabiting the endless universe, there must be a few that share their history. 

She just didn’t think that they’d find one so soon.

Finally, they reach an abandoned coliseum, gnarled, graying vines spreading out along the filthy, cracked marble as stone crumbles beneath their feet. Hunk is rambling on about how this is a bad idea, how Pidge is going to get both of them killed and the entire universe is going to be screwed because of her  _ Scooby Doo  _ hijinks, but he falls silent as soon as they step through the dusty threshold, and his drunken brain finally has time to register what she’s found here.

There’s a pile — a literal  _ pile _ _ — _ of super-advanced alien technology. Some are still powered and blinking. Some are broken beyond repair. It’s as though they’ve taken everything that their ancestors cooked up to make life more convenient, and thrown out everything that couldn’t be used to improve their parties — which, Pidge is a little suspicious might be exactly the case.

“They’ve just dumped it here,” Pidge sighs, flopping down on the ground and grabbing something that looks similar to an old-style telephone from the pile, “Some of this stuff is really impressive. Do you know what this could do?”

She holds up the phone, ignoring the way that the cord winds around her arm up to the elbow. Hunk shrugs.

“If I had some time to fiddle with these wires, I could totally make some spy-gear with this! We’d have ears all over the castle!”

Rover beeps excitedly. At least someone is as enthusiastic about this as she is.

To her surprise, Hunk doesn’t delve into a lecture about allowing him to stay out of the drama. He doesn’t attempt to storm away. He doesn’t ask any of the questions that she’d expected to hear. 

Instead, he pinches the bridge of his nose, wobbling a bit on his feet. 

“D-do ya think that we could use this to see if Lance kisses Keith here?”

A smile curls at the corners of Pidge’s lips.

“Hunk,” she tells him, “With this sort of technology, I wouldn’t be surprised if we could gauge the velocity at which Lance smashes his face against Keith’s, and probably every single species of germ that they share with each other when he does it.”

 

* * *

 

Banished to a table on the opposite end of the courtyard from the others, Keith drags his finger around the rim of his half-empty glass. He understands that he could get up and walk over to his team if he wanted to, it’s not like he’s actually  _ banished _ , as though there’s any reason that they wouldn’t want him there, but something inside of him keeps him rooted to the spot.

In his other hand, he worries the edges of Pidge’s little paper Santa hat, brows drawn low as he takes in the creases, the red from the top of the hat bleeding into the white of the puffball. He imagines her staying up late at night and coloring all of this in. He wonders if a silly prank could really be worth all of that trouble, or if maybe Lance is right. Maybe she really does miss home enough that this is her only comfort. 

He’s contemplating how much work could really go into folding a tiny paper hat when someone sits down beside him. The air shifts, and he can feel the warmth radiating off of another body. He recognizes Lance before he even turns to see him, stuffing down thoughts about all of his familiar smells as he finds himself staring up into Lance’s most troubling, sugary sweet smile. 

That smile reminds him of the bubbling  _ something _ currently growing warmer in his glass. It reminds him of dark chocolate melting on his tongue back home.

He tries not to think about it too much. 

“What are you doing all the way out here by yourself?” Lance asks him, setting his own drink down on the table, “You do know that there’s food over there, right? Hunk’s going nuts.”

Keith doesn’t reply for a long time. The smell of cooking hangs low in the air, carried toward them in the gentle breeze. It’s obvious that he can smell it, but he decides not to comment on that.

Folding over the puffball of the Santa hat, he lifts his fingers and watches as it springs back into place. A new crease forms where he’d held it down. It doesn’t look quite as nice anymore. It already looks too worn, even though he’s only touched it a few times. 

He wonders if he might fold under another person’s touch in the same way. He wonders if some people are like paper hats, if they never go back to normal after they’ve been handled too many times.

“Do you think that your family is celebrating Christmas right now too?”

Lance twitches slightly, drawing in a quick breath as though Keith has reached over and pinched him. After a moment, he reaches forward and plucks the hat from Keith’s hands. 

“Probably not,” he says, a fondness in his eyes that Keith doesn’t understand, “I honestly don’t think that it’s actually Christmas back home. But, uh… I guess it’s a nice thought, isn’t it? All of our loved ones having fun?”

He watches the gentle way that Lance smoothes out the folds of the hat. The crease disappears, and Keith finds himself wondering if maybe some people are capable of healing anything too. He stops himself when his mind starts to wander to what it might feel like if Lance were to touch him that gently. 

Now really isn’t the time.

After a long stretch of silence, Lance begins speaking again.

“I like to think that they miss me, of course, but I also like to think that they’re living a good life back on Earth. When I go to bed, I think about my mom and my aunts tucking in the young ones.”

He laughs, like twinkling wind chimes, like an empty, saddened thing that itches an ache deep inside of Keith’s ribcage.

“I hope that my aunt bought her kids the puppy that they wanted. They were going to name it Rex. Already picked out the stupid name for it and everything.”

Furrowing his brows, biting his lip, Keith tries to imagine naming anything. He tries to imagine how it would feel to be a kid on Christmas morning, hoping that the gigantic box in the middle of the living room might have an animal inside. 

He wrinkles his nose at the thought of it.

“What about you?” Lance asks eventually, so low and quiet that Keith barely hears him at all, “Do you miss your family too? What do you think that they’re doing right now?”

For a mere second, Keith readies himself for an argument. He forgets that he’s never actually gotten around to talking to anyone but Shiro about the state of his family back on Earth. His heartbeat picks up despite how desperately he’d always told himself that he’d stay calm if Lance ever decided to go in for the low blow. His fingers tremble against the long stem of his glass. 

But Lance is looking at him with strangely tender eyes. There’s a smile threatening to break out over his lips, as though he’s waiting for any opportunity to shed their shared sadness and begin living without the burdens that they’d left behind. 

He almost doesn’t have the heart to tell Lance that there’s nothing waiting for him back home. For whatever reason, he feels guilty about his own loneliness. 

“I, uh,” a deep breath, he watches the Komians serving their teammates food on large, round dinner plates, “There’s… no one. I don’t have anyone.”

Any hint of a smile erases itself from Lance’s face. He sits a little straighter, staring down at the paper hat in his hands as though Keith just told him that Santa doesn’t really exist.

“Oh,” he says simply. 

And Keith embraces the silence. 

They sit still for a long while, watching the crowd moving about, listening to the distant hum of music and the laughter bursting from faraway groups. He watches as Hunk clutches his stomach, doubling over at a joke that Coran has apparently told him. He wonders what sort of thing makes normal people laugh.

Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Lance tracing lines over the Santa hat, working out the creases, behaving as though mending all of the damage that Keith has dealt might make up for his misstep in this conversation. Keith wants to tell him that it’s okay, he’s been alone for a long time, it’s really not a big deal, but the words die just as quickly as they rise to his lips. 

Just as he’s readying himself to get up and leave, if only so Lance can stop feeling so down on himself, a hand settles against his shoulder — warm, and firm, and _ there. _

“You have us,” Lance tells him, “You have someone now. It’s.. it’s  _ us _ .”

Keith watches the way that Lance’s lips wrap around the word “us”, as though he’s forcing himself not to say “me” instead. He’s probably just imagining it in the flicker of the lanterns, in the shadows of the setting sun against the horizon and the puddle of Komium’s red moon washing out over Lance’s face. 

He doesn’t know how to reply to that. He isn’t sure what Lance wants to hear. 

He settles on a bashful “thank you”, but before he can vocalize this, another voice rings out through the air, so close that he kicks himself internally for not noticing that another person had made their way over to the table. 

“Laaaaaance,” It takes Keith a moment to recognize the girl from their toga fitting earlier, the one who’d been flirting with Lance. He can’t remember her name, “You didn’t come and find me! You understand that standing a lady up is, like, totally rude, right?”

Lance pulls his hand away, and Keith settles his gaze on their new arrival. She’s shorter than the other girls that he’s seen, thinner in some places, bigger in those that he imagines might matter more to someone like Lance. 

She’s cute, he supposes, in a bizarre alien sort of way. She’s exactly the type of girl that he could imagine hanging off of Lance’s arm. 

He isn’t sure why the thought of that makes his stomach turn.

“H-hey, uh, Bex,” Lance greets, standing from his seat and reaching out to take her hand, “This is Keith. He’s the Red Paladin.”

He helps her into a seat across from them, and Keith can’t stop himself from noticing that he still hasn’t put down the stupid fucking Santa hat. He isn’t sure why it’s such a big deal. Is he going to take it with him? Did he lose his? 

Honestly, it’s bullshit. Lance can’t just go stealing other people’s things because he’s misplaced his own. 

“Paladins of Voltron,” Bex says, cutting right through Keith’s angry inner monologue about hats, “Sounds super cool. Kinda dangerous though. I’d be so scared if I were like, a Paladin and some big scary alien tried to kill me! I’d be all like,  _ ‘Oh my God! Don’t kill me! I’m just trying to make the universe cool again and stuff!’ _ ”

Lance laughs, and whether it’s because of how stupid she sounds, or because she’s a cute girl, actually speaking words to him, Keith has no clue. He’s never been the sort of person to bother with getting tongue-tied around anyone. He’d always thought that guys chasing after stupid girls just because they were pretty was some kind of Hollywood myth. 

But now, as it’s happening right before his eyes, he isn’t so sure.

“It does get kind of scary sometimes,” Lance tells her, “But hey, that’s what being a hero is all about! You have to brave the monsters, save the day, all that fun stuff. We’ve defeated a ton of aliens, haven’t we, Keith?”

Keith isn’t entirely sure how he feels about being pushed into the role of  _ wingman _ here. Especially when Lance is lying right through his teeth.

“It’s mostly been Galra drones,” he says flatly, and Lance’s lips tug downward in a frown, “Not really a lot of aliens. Mainly drones.”

Bex laughs — a shrill, piercing sound, and Keith can’t figure out what’s so goddamn funny. 

“W-well, the drones are still pretty scary! They carry these huge guns, you know. They’re supposed to be as strong as like… fifteen men. Not everyone can take them out!”

“Pidge takes them out all the time and she’s a fourteen year old girl.”

Lance turns sharply, glaring daggers down at Keith as he readjusts himself in his seat. He takes a slow sip of his drink, muttering something darkly around the edge of his glass that Keith can’t quite make out.

“Man,” Bex says suddenly, leaning forward against the table and pushing her breasts together, despite the fact that her toga is cut too high for them to be visible, “You’re really on fire tonight, Red Paladin.”

Suddenly a little bleary from the few cups of Komian alcohol that he currently has under his belt, Keith spreads his arms and looks down at himself. His toga remains spotless, unmarred by the lick of flame or the ash that it might leave in its wake. 

“I’m… I’m not,” before he can even finish that statement, Bex is laughing again. She snorts a little, leaning back in her seat and rubbing the corners of her eyes.

She seems to think that all of this is really hilarious, and he wishes that he had the strength to leave her behind, without worrying about what might happen to Lance if he does. He doubts that he could really convince him to come too, with how eagerly he’s decided to lie in order to win her over. 

This entire situation is leaving a sour taste in his mouth, far stronger than the sugar in his drink. 

Bex reaches forward and places her hand on top of Lance’s, but her eyes stay planted firmly on Keith. He notices the hints of sharp canines behind her parted lips, as they pull up in a smile. Her long lashes fan upward, eyes dancing with the light from the torches, reflecting the crimson shine of the moon.

“You really don’t, like, pick up on things very easily, do you?” she asks, and he doesn’t miss the way that Lance flinches at that, “You’re kind of stupid, aren’t you?”

No one has called him stupid in a very, very long time. For a moment, his vision flashes back to foster parents complaining to their friends while he played out in the yard, the hurried whispers of  _ “this boy just isn’t quite right” _ just loud enough that he couldn’t drown them out. 

He thinks about the groups of kids in school, never asking him to play with them, never inviting him to parties, never knowing more about him than his name and the seemingly universal rule of  _ “Keith Kogane is a weird kid, don’t talk to him” _ . He remembers telling himself that it didn’t matter, not quite understanding the dull tingling of the fire growing deep inside of him; the urge to become someone so great that any of his shortcomings would mean nothing in the face of what he would someday achieve. 

In an instant, he wonders if he’ll ever reach that place, or if he’ll always,  _ always _ be the weird one who never gets the joke. The guy who’s obviously out of place in a conversation, the third wheel that needs to roll away in order for more capable people to have their fun. 

Whatever he’s drinking, he reasons, is making him feel uncharacteristically insecure. He hasn’t thought about any of this in a long, long time. 

He can’t even bring himself to say anything in reply. He can’t look at Lance. He doesn’t want to see the agreement that he’ll surely find there. 

He isn’t expecting the warmth of an arm wrapping around his shoulder. He can’t comprehend why it would be there at all. With a start, he finally looks over in Lance’s direction, just in time to feel the electrical shock of hot, wet lips pressed against his cheek. 

Turning his head only made him lean more into it. He’s frozen in place, as though a blanket of heat has settled right over the top of him. 

“He’s not stupid, he’s drunk,” Lance snaps, leaning even further over in order to properly defile Keith’s personal space, “And it’s honestly really shitty of you to say something like that about  _ my boyfriend _ anyway. You know what they call girls like you where we’re from?”

Keith doesn’t even know what they call girls like Bex back home. Even if he did, he wouldn’t be able to remember it right now. He can feel Lance’s pulse beating steadily against him, an electricity popping over his skin everywhere that they touch. Lance’s arms are bare in his toga, as are Keith’s, and the shock of being touched is amplified a hundred times by the sensation of skin touching skin.

He can’t even bring himself to think about those two words — _ ”my boyfriend”  _ circling through his thoughts in a confusing mantra that has his panicked brain nearly crashing and burning as it scrambles to piece everything together.  

Bex is rising from her seat, angry now, and Keith feels like he’s missing something. His brain is sputtering, struggling to keep up with the lightening-fast pace of this conversation. Bex thought that everything was funny, and now she’s mad. Lance was flirting, and now his arm is wrapped around Keith’s shoulders. 

There were lips burning against his skin. Lance kissed him, for some reason. His mind short-circuits at the thought of that alone. 

This is too much. 

“What do they call girls like me, huh?” Bex spits, knocking her drink over onto the table, “What would you call me on your stupid  _ pithikos _ planet?!”

Lance doesn’t rise, but Keith can feel the heat of his anger coming off of him in waves. Now they’re fighting. He can’t keep up with this. Lance’s skin is so soft and warm against him. Lance somehow smells like suntan lotion and the salt of the ocean, despite the fact that they haven’t seen a beach even once since they’d left Earth. 

His hair tickles the side of Keith’s face. His breath is a sugary, alcoholic warmth against Keith’s clammy skin. His nerves fizzle and his entire body trembles, but Lance doesn’t seem to notice any of it in his anger.  

“They — they call girls like you, uh — w-well, they call you  _ ‘not very nice girls’ _ !”

If Lance weren’t defending his honor, Keith might put his head in his palm, covering up his shame at such a pathetic attempt at an insult. Bex seems to be infuriated enough as it is, and maybe it’s because they’ve all been drinking. Maybe Lance could have called her just about anything and she’d yield the same reaction. 

“Well, you know what we call people like you on this planet, huh?!” her words slur into a nearly indecipherable flurry of shrieks and cries. Keith resists the urge to cover his ears, “They call you pussies! Spineless medousa without any, like, backbone at all!”

Keith can’t believe that a society without any similar lifeforms to Earth would still use the word  _ ‘pussy’ _ in the same manner as humans, but he feels as though now isn’t the time to mention it. Maybe he’ll bring it up to Lance later when he isn’t hurling random insults at Bex’s receding back. 

Lance doesn’t pull his arm away for awhile after Bex finally disappears into the distant crowd. They sit in silence, listening to the music and the laughter, picking out the faces of their teammates through the darkness and the ominous scarlet hue of the moon bleeding down against the ground.

His heartbeat finally settles, finally evens out as he grows accustomed to the feeling of being touched for so long by another person. He isn’t sure if he’ll ever be able to wash off the burn of Lance’s touch against his skin, if he’ll ever feel the same again once Lance eventually pulls himself away.

He listens to the sound of Lance breathing, of the quiet curse that he bites out as he reaches forward and throws back another drink. Keith watches the way that Bex’s spilled drink spreads out along the surface of the table, bleeding into the pristine white of the tablecloth. He notices that Lance has moved the paper hat far enough away that the stains won’t reach it, and he takes a moment to appreciate the fact that every extra crease has been worked away. 

He had no idea that anyone could do that sort of thing. He hadn’t ever stopped to think that maybe flaws could be mended instead of only camouflaged. 

He decides that maybe he’s thinking entirely too much about paper hats. 

After some time passes, and it’s apparent that Lance isn’t moving any time soon, Keith finally gathers the will to speak. His voice is far too feeble and vulnerable for his liking, but he tells himself that it’s the alcohol. It must be doing strange things to his voice box. 

“Lance, uh…” Lance’s eyes are bright in the darkness, but they feel like hot coals raking over his skin, “Thanks, uh… for that.”

_ For everything _ , is what he wants to say, but for whatever reason, he can’t bring himself to actually say it.

It might be a trick of the red moon’s light, but he swears that he can see a dark flush working its way over Lance’s cheekbones. 

Lance pulls away, and for a moment, Keith wonders if he did something wrong. But there’s a hand quickly wrapping around his wrist, the lingering warmth against his shoulders still not entirely faded before Lance decides to touch him again. His tired brain gives up even trying to understand any of this. 

“Come on,” Lance tells him, “Let’s get trashed.”

He doesn’t understand what that’s supposed to mean, but he follows nonetheless.   
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, okay, late-night update because I've been working all weekend, today was one of my only days off, and I work semi-early again tomorrow! Moth here, just a little bit older than last time that I posted! Thank you to everyone for reading and commenting so far! 
> 
> Komium is one of the planets that Lemon and I were the most excited about, just because the entire concept of frat-aliens is honestly such intriguing, uncharted territory and how can you not love the them? An alien named Thad. I've died and gone to stupid fanfic author heaven.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you guys liked it! See you next time! (Merry Keithmas to all, and to all a good night!)


	10. Beautiful Blue You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If there was ever a more ideal time for Zarkon to make a move, Keith thinks with a fond smile, now would definitely be it.

After Lance and Keith push their way through the giant throng of sweating, gyrating bodies in various states of cheering, dancing, and singing, they come upon the rest of their teammates grouped in a circle, seated in what looks a lot like high tech versions of beach folding chairs. Keith blinks as his vision goes out of focus looking down at them, the ground spinning up suddenly fast towards him, and he trips over his feet. A firm hand steadies him out, helps him sit. Whoever it belongs to smells like they’ve been hanging out on the beach for a long time, so it’s only fitting they get the lounge chair to go with it.

 

The chairs have disorienting flashing lights on them, and they’re practically pointless, set so low in the earth that his legs stretch out in the scratchy grass underneath. But considering he had so much trouble simply sitting down, Keith thinks that’s probably for the best. A drink is quickly pushed into his hands by someone, and he’s gulping it down, letting the warm, sweet sting of it work a deeper buzz into his veins.

 

Pidge appears to be at the center of attention, with two female Komians bent towards her on either side of her chair, very focused on painting some glittering substance on her face. It takes a moment for Keith to realize they’re dragging a weird type of marker over where her eyebrows used to be, filling in the space with thin, crescent shaped makeshift ones that don’t look half bad.

 

“Girl, you look like, _so_ good.”

 

The one Komian girl - who has long, silky black hair tied into a messy bun on top of her head and razor sharp glittering red nails - sits back to admire her work. The other - whom has a sparkling bedazzled toga, with tacky gems on it that remind Keith of those shitty packaged ‘do-it-yourself bedazzle’ sets back on Earth -  nods enthusiastically. She produces a mirror, gushing over how pretty Pidge looks, how ‘on point’ the makeup is, how her ‘eyebrow game is just, like, so strong’.

 

“Hot babes’ll be totally after your smoking ass after this, hun.” She pushes back her frizzing bangs, makes like she’s clawing the air and winks. “They’ll be all like, ‘Da _yum_ , check that bitch out!’”

 

“Thanks, Candass,” Pidge sets her glasses back on her face as she addresses the black haired one who seems to be in a constant state of linguistic seizures, “I’m pretty sure I’ll be the hottest bitch on the block now.”

 

The bedazzled one thumps her shoulder and squeals so gratingly high pitched, Keith swears he can feel it scratching the inside of his brain. She gives Pidge a high-five. “Eyy, that’s the spirit, girlfriend!”

 

Nearby Shiro, who seems to be having issues supporting a highly animated and cheering Allura (who’s also gushing about how Pidge’s eyebrows are perfect), is surveying the scene a little disapprovingly, though he’s leaning a bit more to the side than usual in his chair. Keith grins knowingly at the flush that lines his cheeks, reminding him of a time that seems so far away now, back at the garrison when occasionally Shiro would sneak him beer and talk to him so differently than the others, like the way a normal friend would.

 

He reflects on this, re-adjusts his paper santa hat on his head to make sure it’s still there, and takes another sip.

 

Hunk watches Pidge carefully with glassy eyes, gives a tiny hiccup before asking, “When in the world did you lose your eyebrows, Pidge?” Confusion creeps across his face as he sways in his seat. “Like, where did they even go? Did they just crawl off of your face one day? Dude. You should learn to keep better track of them.”

 

“Alright, let’s get back to the game then,” Pidge announces without acknowledging poor Hunk, and the girls fall away and meld back into the crowd at the mention of a nearby kegger.

 

Surveying his surroundings blearily, Keith takes note that Lance has seated himself to his right side, Shiro and Allura are basically a single package of tangled limbs to his left. Hunk is on their other side, and Keith feels mildly bad for him as Allura intermittently keeps accidentally elbowing him, though he seems to have become so drunk that he’s impervious to it. Coran is directly across from him, Pidge on Lance’s right. Their circle is tight knit and personal, dead-center of so many swinging and celebrating bodies. Several Komians sit behind them, looking on towards their group curiously.

 

“Pidge taught them ‘never have I ever’,” Hunk explains with a heavy slur, “She’s not even drinking, but she’s still winning. How...how does that even work.” He leans closer, puts a hand to the side of his mouth as if it will keep his loud voice from carrying back to Pidge, and shifts his eyes back and forth. “It’s alll a setup, I think she’s conspiring against Voltron, dude. She has...she has eyes _everywhere_...”

 

Pidge sticks out her tongue at Lance before announcing, “Never have I ever said a lame joke.”

 

For a minute, no one moves to drink, until everyone begins pointedly looking at Lance and Coran. They both sigh heavily and tip back their glasses. One of two male Komians who are hanging off each other behind Coran also drinks, while his friend gasps and tells him, ‘But bro, your jokes are always bromazing to me’. Keith lets them have their moment when the one who took a drink stares back in amazement, going into a rant about how much he values their ‘broship’.

 

Lance laughs, licking drops of booze off his lips, and moves forward on his knees. He reaches over to clap a hand against Hunk’s back. His cheeks are painted the rosiest red Keith thinks he’s ever seen, like someone rolled a dark shade of lipstick across it.

 

Keith takes another drink when that thought promptly wanders to what Lance might look like with actual dark lipstick clinging to the curve of his lips, when his eyes linger just a little too long on the way his toga hikes up and clings in a similar manner to his thighs and ass, showing off so much more of that bronzed, beautiful skin than usual.

 

“Hunk, you’re fucking wasted. Good for you, man. It’s gonna be alright.”

 

Lance draws back and ruffles Pidge’s hair, nearly knocking her over while she complains, and Keith wonders if Lance is being more handsy because of the simple fact that he’s drunk, and maybe he was just reading too much into what happened earlier.

 

Even though Pidge punches him in the arm and tells him how much his ‘smelly breath reeks’, Lance lips curl into a goofy grin. “She’s definitely conspiring against us though, alright. Little devil wrapped into a small package, this one.”

 

“Oh, he’s right.” Pidge smirks, and Keith is sure if she had a flashlight right then, she’d be pointing it up to her face in the dark like someone would around a campfire while telling a pivotal moment in a scary story. She lowers her voice and waggles her fingers. “It’s _all_ a conspiracy, Hunk. I’m not who you think I am at all.”

 

She pops up out of her seat then, startling nearly everyone who’s more than two drinks in around her. Hovering over Hunk, she laughs maniacally before she says, “I’m actually...a galra soldier in disguise!”

 

Spooked, Hunk jumps in his seat, knocking back into a table behind them. Several cups and dishes go crashing to the ground. A few Komians who have been serving them all night and appear to be stuck with being sober complain with various exclamations of ‘not cool, bro’ and ‘totally lame and super un-righteous, dude’, and Hunk scrambles to help them as he splutters apologies. Pidge bursts out laughing, along with Lance. Keith finds his own chuckles burbling up, the liquor spreading hotter and deeper into his core the more he does.

 

“Pidge...Pidge, cool it…’s not nice...Hunk is a good guy...” Shiro reprimands, but no one’s really taking him seriously with the way he fights to say it with a straight face. “Galras are...that’s serious shit, not a joke. Disappointed.”

 

Pidge only doubles over more, wiping tears from her eyes. “Oh my god, Shiro, did you just say ‘shit’? I’m so glad I’m recording all of this. This is amazing.”

 

Coran falls slightly to the left as he whips his head around to face her, almost tumbling from his seat. He voices the similar thought Keith is having at that moment, “You’re _recording_ us..?”

 

Allura covers her mouth and giggles, waving a finger at them. “Listen...listen to your fellow paladin,” she chokes out, and her and Shiro look at each other before dissolving into a mess of full belly laughter, leaning on and intermittently using each other’s shoulders to keep from falling over.

 

If there was ever a more ideal time for Zarkon to make a move, Keith thinks with a fond smile, now would definitely be it.

 

The Komians laugh along with them, passing around and refilling their glasses, cheering and giving fist and chest bumps to each other. Everything seems more than right with the world. Keith finds his worries melting away with every inclusion into the conversation, with every subtle pat against his arm that Lance keeps doing, with every small brush of his fingers that are running experimentally over Keith’s hand whenever he laughs harder and falls closer to him. He wonders if all this contact is on purpose or not.

 

Pidge collects herself after a few minutes and settles back down in her seat.

 

“Never have I ever…” Pidge surveys the group thoughtfully.

 

Shiro looks like he’s mildly regretting joining them, even if he appears conflicted with happiness at the fact Allura is still leaning heavily onto him for support, her head neatly tucked into the curve of his shoulder as she flicks at the long tuft of his white hair.

 

Pidge leans back in her chair, crosses her legs. “Never have I ever wanted to kiss a guy.”

 

Keith knocks back the rest of his drink without a second thought, unaware of Lance’s staring until he shifts to try and steady his rapidly spinning head. Through the blur of their group, he’s able to make out Allura and Coran drinking too, as well as almost all of the Komians. Lance doesn’t move, mouth gaping open so much that Keith is tempted to push it close because it looks sort of dumb - though admittedly in a cute way. If he doesn’t stop staring at him with those comically wide eyes and cute open mouth soon, Keith decides he may just start throwing little bits of food into it as a new game they can all play.

 

“What?” Keith drawls, running a hand over the sweat beading on his brow. His tongue is feeling a lot fatter than usual. “Is there something on my face?”

 

He wipes his face quickly with the bottom part of his toga, he hopes there isn’t anything there. Lance is always so particular about his body, it’s honestly a little frustrating. Completely forgetting that he wasn’t wearing anything but his boxers underneath, everyone except Lance and the Komians shield their faces as they get a good view while he accidentally flashes them. He can’t bother to find anything wrong with it, really, even as Shiro leans over and gently tugs the fabric back down over his bare legs.

 

His skin is hot, hotter than he thinks it’s ever been, and the night air feels refreshing and cool against it. For a second, he almost contemplates just taking the damn heavy thing off completely, but Lance is pulling an even weirder face now, so he decides maybe that’s too much if Lance is that disturbed by seeing another man’s legs.

 

Pidge clicks her tongue, her gaze shifting onto Lance. Lance’s knuckles are white with the strain of the grip he has on his glass.

 

Keith wonders if he’s the only one who noticed Coran take a drink. There’s a moment where he doesn’t feel so alone, and Coran smiles kindly back at him with a wink, like maybe the way an older brother might have shared a secret with him, had he ever had one. Another drink gets shoved into his hands from some peeved-looking Komian server.

 

Hunk’s voice comes in muted, wavering as he perks up and cocks an eyebrow when he finally catches onto the insinuation of what Pidge said. “Whoah, wait a tick, did you just _come out_ \--”

 

“Hey Pidge, you broke a rule! That one doesn’t count, you can’t go twice in a row,” Lance’s voice booms indignantly over Hunk’s. “That d-didn’t quiznakking count!”

 

“Really? I feel like maybe _you’re_ the one who was breaking a rule there…”

 

Lance enters a strange staring contest with Pidge that everyone else isn’t paying much attention to. Allura is whispering something into a heavily flushing Shiro’s ear, Hunk has momentarily turned to a Komian guy next to him who he proceeds to fistbump. Another Komian is asking Coran if his hair is made of actual fire, and if so, could he then possibly ‘hook a bro up with that sweet ass fire so they can light a dope joint’. Coran is politely declining when Keith shifts his attention back to Lance.

 

Lance is glancing back over to him, brows drawn tight, lips completely thinned. He turns his scowl to his own cup, and Keith is wondering what a cup full of liquor could possibly do to make someone so angry. Glaring with all his might into it, Lance sighs, flips Pidge off, and then takes a quick drink before instantly deciding it’s his turn.

 

Keith feels something flutter wildly in his chest, especially when Lance’s wandering fingers make their round to briefly touch his knee this time. The toga isn’t quite pulled down as far as it had been before, now bunched more around his thighs, so the buzz of skin-on-skin in such a different place makes him shiver.

 

“N-never have I ever,” Lance’s glare turns to the rest of them, and everyone quiets down as he speaks, “Been a nosy, little _snoop_ into other people’s lives.”

 

It’s an odd place to go, Keith thinks, but his brain is feeling more than a little fuzzy, so maybe he’s missed something someone said. He can’t recall a time where this might apply to him, so he doesn’t move to drink. Pidge shrugs, drinks the juice from her glass. Keith isn’t particularly surprised by that, but he is fairly surprised to see Shiro hesitate before frowning and taking a sip along with Allura, twin guilty sheepish looks plastered on their faces. Hunk coughs before taking a tiny sip, staring incredulously at Coran for some reason when he doesn’t.

 

Lance seems satisfied with that, though he raises an eyebrow at Hunk, who is avoiding making eye contact with anyone. Keith wonders if it’s just him, or if the atmosphere had been this tense before.

 

As the next person in the circle, Lance trails a finger slowly up Keith’s arm to signal that it’s his turn. He’s not sure if it’s a normal Lance way of getting someone’s attention, but he’s not going to question it as little quakes of pleasure drag along with it.

 

“Um, never, never, never--” How many ‘nevers’ are appropriate again? “--have I ever…”  

 

Keith tries to think of what he hasn’t done, tries to narrow down the large list of things to just one other people might have experienced the most, tries to focus in the aftershocks of Lance’s touch.

 

“...celebrated Christmas before this.” He puts a finger to his chin, sloshing some of his drink out of his cup in the process. “Er, well, y-you know. I may have when I was like, a baby or something? I don’t know. But uh...yeah...”

 

He supposes it sounds like more of a bummer than he meant it, but everyone groans, knocking back their glasses except for Coran, Allura, and the Komians.

 

“The fuck is Chrishmus, bruh?” One says, but Keith ignores them, not really feeling like he needs to explain when saying those few words was a struggle within itself. Talking is starting to become a real chore.

 

When Lance puts his glass down, his fingers come back to Keith’s hand again, but this time, he doesn’t move them. Instead, he lets his own hand carefully rest on top of his, smoothing his thumb back and forth rhythmically and soothingly over his palm. Keith’s other hand fumbles with his glass, almost dropping it right in his lap. He had taken his gloves off earlier at Allura’s suggestion to ‘respect the traditional wardrobe of the Komians’, and though sad at parting with them at the time, he’s now thankful that he made that decision.

 

All these touches are overwhelming in just the fact alone that he rarely has ever been touched, and most definitely never in this way. But it’s Lance, he keeps reminding himself, and he’s not sure how much longer he can sit here around everyone and not lose his cool a little.

 

His brain struggles to make sense of this development as he gulps down the lump in his throat, takes a few deep breaths to try and center the rapid beating of his heart and the swirling of the alcohol affecting his head. Some light touches over his hand should not have the right to feel this fucking good.

 

Shiro doesn’t even stutter when it’s his turn. “Never have I ever not lost an arm.”

 

Everyone drinks as Shiro tips his chin proudly. Allura buries her face into his chest and laughs and laughs.

 

Lance nods his head in admiration, mumbling under his breath, “How am I ever going to top that...dammit Shiro…”

 

Lance stops caressing over his palm, only to curl around it and interlace their fingers, and Keith stares at him numbly, because now he’s fully holding his hand. He wants to tap him on the shoulder, ask him if he’s aware they are holding hands in front of everyone, but at the same time, he doesn’t want it to end anytime soon.

 

Maybe it’s selfish of him to not redirect Lance when he’s obviously out of his mind right then, but with the warmth that spreads fast up his arm from the comforting weight of Lance’s hand, he can’t bring himself to really give a flying fuck. In this moment, this is his little secret to cherish, and his alone.

 

They play for a while, until the world isn’t much more than a wildly shuttering blur of colors and sights and sounds, of the feel of sweaty skin clasped against his own, of the pungent smell of alcohol freely flowing like fountains that seem to drown him. At one point, Keith notices there are _literal_ fountains of liquor off to his left, making that metaphor a whole lot less impressive.

 

The game breaks up the more inebriated they all get, none of them having the dexterity to speak well or the concentration anymore to make sense of it all. Pidge always seems to be at the center, having the time of her life watching everyone making complete fools of themselves, a devious, green-eyebrowed blob standing out from the crowd.

 

A group of Komians raise her up on their shoulders, and with her glasses glinting and fake eyebrows sparkling in the red moonlight, Rover decked in its stupid shitty santa hat hovering off to her right like some lackey animal, she honestly looks like she could be their unconventional ruler. She’s laughing, tossing bits of food down at Hunk and Coran as they fight against each other to see who can catch the most in their mouths. Keith thinks good for her - for being happy, for having fun, for getting some time to properly be able to be a kid again.

 

They all deserve this, he thinks. They all deserve to have a respite from this stressful life.

 

Shiro and Allura are gone, off who knows where, lost in the private shadows of the night.

 

Keith finds his arm is being tugged upwards, Lance’s grin flashing between the lights of the chairs and the stars. He doesn’t stop holding his hand even as he stumbles to his feet, dragging Keith along with him.

 

“Up you go, buddy, that’s it,” he says, giving Keith’s hand a squeeze while his other supports the small of his back when he tips immediately back in the direction of the ground. “You alright? Can you walk?”

 

Keith nods, and the world spins and spins and spins. He lurches forward, gripping tight onto Lance’s arm until the vertigo subsides. Lance doesn’t pull away, only lends him the crook of his elbow.

 

“Great! Let’s go get some water, okay?”

 

His skin is blistering, his mouth severely dry, so water sounds good, he supposes. But all that really exists to Keith in that moment is Lance, watching him with kind eyes. Lance, holding his hand with their arms linked and grinning through perfectly straight, white teeth. Lance, with his long, dark fluttering lashes, speaking to him in a low pitch that sounds like rain hitting a tin roof on a lazy day. Lance, with his sweaty hair framing his handsome, boyish face.

 

Nothing but Lance.

 

_Lance, Lance, Lance._

 

“Pretty,” Keith says without thinking, but Lance doesn’t hear him over the roar of the crowd, which increases tenfold.

 

Thad is back, crowd surfing over the heads of his fellow Komians and being tossed right in front of them, a bottle clutched in his grubby hands. Off to his side, Keith can hear Hunk shrieking at the suddenness of this tiny alien in a toga flipping towards them, though they all applaud as Thad lands like a cat on his feet.

 

“It is time, my brothers, dope dudes of Voltron,” he announces, smashing the bottle to the ground and raising up his hands like some fuckboy conductor as the crowd pulsates and cheers louder, “for the raddest karaoke session in the history of ever to take place!”

  


* * *

 

 

“Allura!” Shiro calls, stumbling on the dirt path where he last saw Allura, frantically trying to keep a straight head and some semblance of coordination among the alcohol sloshing what feels like ten times the recommended dosage of muscle relaxants into his system, among the very terrifying fact that he lost Allura in the crowd at least ten minutes ago now.

 

“Allura, where are you?!”

 

He can’t believe this. Not only has he lost Allura, trying to follow off to where she disappeared separated him from everyone else as well. The mass of people is much louder now, so many bodies writhing around him that it’s practically a solid barricade at the perimeter of the crowd. A few Komians near him are talking animatedly about some big event going on, which only makes things harder considering everyone is too fucked up to help or to pay attention to the pressing matter of him somehow losing a goddamn Princess.

 

This is all his fault. He encouraged Allura to let loose, only to end up screwing them all over. If he can’t find her, his name will go down in history as the one person who single-handedly fucked over the entire universe. Not to mention, he thinks with rising panic, that losing Allura forever is something that dips a fear even larger in him than seeing any galra soldier would, that any threat of being held captive against his will again ever could.

 

He stumbles over a root as his feet carry him away from the swell of music and blurred bodies and laughter, almost falls flat on his face until someone catches him around the waist and practically tosses him back up.

 

Shiro turns around to hurriedly thank them, but he jumps back and cries out at the sight, head reeling with the sharp jolt of his body.

 

It takes him a minute to process what he’s seeing before relief instantly sets in - it’s a pale, yellow skinned Allura with piercing irises like the sun and black sclera, smiling in her toga, bright purple and blue eyeshadow accentuating the gentle slope of her eyes so that they seem to pop out at him through the dark. There’s a mass of colored freckles dotting her cheeks, her lashes curled so long and thick they reach past her eyebrows. Her hair is a glossy black, straightened out and cascading all the way to her waist. The marks under her eyes are the only things that would distinguish her from other Komians - and even then, Shiro had to do a double take just to make sure.

 

She’s stunning, as usual, even in this foreign skin. As he stares, he gulps back the lump in his throat. _Especially_ like this.

 

She sways before she slings an arm around his shoulder, laughing.

 

“Sur- _prise_!”

 

She leans on him much like she did before, giggling uncontrollably until she collects herself enough to rush out breathless words. “You should have seen the look on your face! You were all like ‘Holy quiznak, I’m going to die!’” She laughs again. “I mean, you didn’t say that, but I’m certain that’s what your thought process was at the time.”

 

She pokes him on the nose, and Shiro is entirely too aware of how close they are, how close they’ve been all night. The physical contact has been nonstop almost, and yet it still thrills him as much as the small peck of a kiss she gave him the other night, still feels new and fresh no matter how many times they touch.

 

“You’re uh, you uh, wow,” Shiro clears his throat, smile unfurling on his face as so many emotions jumble around inside of him. He doesn’t have the heart to chastise her for running off like that and scaring the ever-loving shit out of him. “You look nice. That color really suits you.”

 

She tilts her head, pulls back enough to stand beside him. She twirls around as if she’s sashaying down a fashion runway.

 

“You think so?” She places a hand at her hip, curtsying lightly. “I thought it would be more diplomatic and immersive this way.” As she says the larger words, her tongue fumbles, her pronunciation a little off.

 

“Definitely a good change to make in the name of diplomacy.” Oh, god, Shiro thinks, clapping a hand to his forehead. Why did he say that? So lame.

 

Allura only giggles, and Shiro is about to suggest they go find the others in order to redirect where the conversation is going, when a group of sloshed Komians hanging off each other comes up to them.

 

“Whoah, sick arm dude. Gnarly muscles, too, bruh. How much can you press?” One guy says, prodding his metal arm.

 

“Uh…”

 

“Hey, Allura, girl!” Another calls out familiarly, waving excitedly as she runs to them. She has blonde hair so light it almost looks white, wrapped in a long french braid down her back, and she wraps Allura into a giant hug when she reaches them. Shiro turns between them, trying to staunch the buzzing in his head long enough to figure out what’s going on.

 

“ _Oh_ ,” she says, eyes widening and smirking as she seems to notice him staring. She puts one hand to her hip. “Is this that cute guy you told me about? Good choice, hun. What a hottie!”

 

Allura flushes, her cheeks turning a bright orange with the mix of her skin. Shiro tries to focus on grounding himself, even though he isn’t paying much attention to anything after the word ‘cute’.

 

“Maddie, yes, this is Shiro.” Allura comes over to him, leans her head on his shoulder as her legs buckle a little when she attempts to stand taller. “He’s a...very brave warrior, paladin of voltron and defender of the universe and...and…” She fumbles with her hands, twisting them together. “A really great guy.”

 

“Oh my gawd, you guys totally make, like, such a cute couple,” says another girl, hanging off the shoulders of the guy who spoke earlier, and Shiro wants nothing more than to disappear into the ground.

 

“U-um, uh, thank you, but we’re not--”

 

Luckily, Allura redirects the conversation, seeming to sense how uncomfortable he is.

 

“So, what are you all up to?” She interjects, “You mentioned something about a ‘key-gore’ earlier? How is that going?”

 

“ _Kegger_ , gurl, kegger!” Maddie squeals, “You all have to come, especially since you’ve never been to one! Mitch does the craziest keg stands, you really can’t miss it!”

 

The girls cheer, clapping as the one named ‘Mitch’ flexes his muscles. He points to Shiro.

 

“Bruh, I bet you could do some badass stuff with those arms, my man. You gotta be there, don't disappoint your lovely lady, bro.”

 

Shiro means to protest, means to emphasize that maybe they should go back and keep an eye on the others because god knows what they’re getting up to, but Allura links her arm with his, and before he knows it he’s being lead away, with the image of Allura smiling at him the only thing he can see clearly anymore.

 

* * *

 

 

Lance is on his fifth drink when he notices Keith has to be at least on his tenth or more, and he’s going to kill whoever it is that keeps encouraging his drunk ass after he spent a good amount of time trying to re-hydrate it. Every time he looks over, his cup seems to always be full, and yet he’s getting more and more intoxicated.

 

After announcing karaoke, Thad had led them to one of the main halls in the temple, which had even taller columns stretching out in a giant ballroom with an impressive looking machine sitting at the top of intricate, marbled stairs.

 

They’d gone along with a few songs, but slowly had learned it had proven to be a more than difficult task considering no one knew any traditional Komian music (which consisted of very high pitched and disorienting melodies, with a startling amount of similarities to dubstep and lyrics about partying).  The lyrics on the screen, however, were only in Komian, so not being able to read the words as they blipped by was a pretty big issue. Coran’s attempt at teaching ancient Altean songs wasn’t much of a hit either.

 

But then Pidge had said something or other about being able to fix that, and Thad had given her permission to work on the machine without any questions, too busy teaching Coran how to do a keg stand with some of his friends to apparently give a flying fuck.

 

“Alright, who keeps giving Keith drinks?!” Lance calls out over chattering, dancing Komians. Not having really been interested in singing combined with the fact keeping an eye on Keith was becoming more like a full time job now (especially since he seemed so hellbent on attacking Rover to remove its tiny hat, for one thing), he hadn’t moved to join them around the machine, instead sulking slightly as he nursed his drink at the bottom of the stairs.

 

Pidge snorts as she flips through the programming on the alien karaoke machine, and honestly Lance isn’t buying her little ‘innocence act’ as she guiltily avoids looking at him and laughs back when Thad snickers in her direction.

 

Lance sighs. “I don’t care how funny it is, I thought we all agreed he needed to be cut off!”

 

“Dude.” Keith totters behind Hunk, trying to use his shirt to keep from falling as he passes by. The only reason Hunk doesn’t drunkenly tumble down with him is the fact he’s practically built like a tank, and no amount of people hanging off him ever seems to be an issue, even at a time like now. Keith jabs a thumb in Lance’s direction, asks Hunk, “What’s...what’s his problem?”

 

“Who, Lance?” Hunk laughs. “Pfft, what isn’t his problem? Just, I dunno. Just look at him.” He knocks back his drink, shrugs. “Sorry, Lance, but uh. It’s true.”

 

Pidge claps a hand to her knee, pausing in her work to rewire whatever the fuck she’s rewiring to double over with laughter. She pauses to get up and give both Hunk and Keith a high five. Lance gasps, clapping a hand to his heart, disbelieving that Hunk of all people could betray him this easily.

 

“Oi, Lance,” Keith cups his hands around his mouth, whistles and waves for him to come over. Lance is trying not to focus on the fact that the one sleeve of his toga has fallen off his shoulder completely. “You’re always so loud and complainy! Quit...quit being like that and come over here to sing with us! Stop being like...in the mud and stuff...”

 

“Stick in the mud?” Hunk guesses, scratching his head.

 

Keith nods. “Yeah, yeah, that,” he confirms to Hunk, then screams back over to him, ”Get out of the fucking mud, Lance, before it’s too late!”

 

Hunk joins in, and soon enough Lance is dealing with two of his fellow paladins screaming at him over the din of tons of partying alien voices for him to “Get his ass the fuck out of the mud or else”.

 

“Goddammit, Keith.” Lance pushes his way past some dancing Komians, desperately fighting up the stairs to get close enough to yank Keith’s new drink out of his shaking hands. He has no intention of singing with them when Keith is probably in danger of alcohol poisoning. “I didn’t make you drink all that water so you could equal it out with booze!”

 

“You know, Lance, they both make great points. You’re so whiny,” Pidge says without looking at him, “Chill out and let the boy have some fun.”

 

Keith comes over to inspect what she’s doing, which means he basically trips up the few more stairs and almost nosedives into the karaoke machine. Pidge orders Rover to go assist him, who slides under Keith in seconds flat and helps him back up before anything bad happens. Keith makes to swipe its santa hat as they hover right above him afterwards, but Rover seems to be on to his plan and takes off back to Pidge, flashing blue lights at him in alarm. Keith flips them off.

 

Pidge looks up from her work, wipes the sweat from her brow. She gestures to Keith, who’s finally managed to safely sit next to her on the steps, taking intermittent sips with both hands supporting his cup.

 

“Just look at him, Lance. How can you get mad at a face like that?” Lance freezes on the step he’s on when Keith licks his lips and turns his goofy lopsided smile towards him, hair all wild and plastered to his forehead with sweat. Pidge pokes one of Keith’s cheeks, and he grins harder. “Isn’t he cute?”

 

“Uh, ah, w-well...”

 

Lance continues slowly, swaying on his feet, his own dizziness from fighting his way up dotting his line of vision with stars. He’s only a few steps higher, but the ground suddenly seems way farther away.

 

Keith looks at him expectantly, shyly almost. “Yeah, Lance,” he points to his face, smile becoming more smug, “Aren’t I - _hic_ \- cute?”

 

Pidge and Hunk are staring at him now too - much too eagerly, he notes, the jerks. The karaoke machine splutters, struggling to take in whatever code Pidge is feeding it. She kicks it before it thrums back to its steady blipping noise, the room tilts a little. Lance gives up on trying to stop what’s happening and flops down next to Keith, leaning back on his hands and avoiding looking at that smirk. If the guy wants to have a good time and get the world's worst hangover, he supposes he can’t really deny him that.

 

“What do you think, Lance? We’re right, aren’t we?” Pidge prompts, and Lance sort of wants to put her in a headlock.

 

“Uh, well, I--” Lance starts to answer. He wants to say no, he really really does. But, “...I g-guess if you...actually _like_ terrible 80’s...hairstyles, he kinda is...or whatever...” is what comes out instead. He’s blaming whatever the fuck is in these drinks.

 

“Oh wow.” Pidge puts a hand to her mouth as if in shock, leaning in to better hear them. “Shit, Hunk, did you hear that? Lance thinks Keith is _cute_!” she teases in a sing-song voice, much like she did when she accused Hunk of being Shay’s boyfriend.

 

Hunk sloppily pats him on the back, almost causing him to tumble back down the stairs. “Whoah, Lance, way to go!”

 

“This is...wait, that was entrapment, you little shit,” Lance groans, clapping a hand against his forehead. “Doesn’t count. Also, I take it back. He’s not cute at all, and I hate you guys.”

 

“‘S okay,” a voice dips low like liquid silk, mixing with the heat of the room and the pounding of Lance’s heart just then. A warm arm is being slung around his shoulders, a drink being slightly spilled onto his toga. Keith presses his grin into his neck as he leans on him, his lips dance with the movement of his next words against his skin, “Cause I think you’re beautiful, dude. So like, we’re even.”

 

Lance isn’t even paying attention to the sounds of Hunk and Pidge saying “Ohhhhh” and doing stupid little victory dances like idiots, isn’t paying attention to the karaoke machine finally loading and beginning to play the starting tempo of a song so familiar his entire body burns with sensation, a dizzying mix of pleasure and homesickness and Keith’s unexpected praise.

 

“B-beautiful?” His voice cracks, the word repeating over and over like a broken record in his head. “Y-you really think I’m b-beautiful?”

 

No one outside of his own mother has ever called him that before. He’s floating, drifting away through the clouds as the melody of _Bohemian Rhapsody_ blares to full life across the speakers. The Komians don’t stop dancing, but they all turn their eyes to them, voices faltering as they don’t know how the words are supposed to sound to the rhythm of the foreign song. It’s almost as if time stops, as if a spotlight is being beamed in their direction.

 

And still, Keith is leaning on him, his small glance up under full, fluttering lashes all the confirmation Lance needs to know he’s telling the truth. They don’t share anymore words, because it isn’t necessary. Lance’s lips move then, bellow out the lines he knows so well, Keith following his lead. Lance’s smile is so wide it’s painful as he watches Hunk lift Pidge onto his shoulders while they get into it, too, going back and forth between the main lines. Keith leaves to join them at one point, and Lance can't stop smiling like an idiot at the ceiling.

 

They’re putting on probably the strangest play right there, the four of them engaging in a popular culture experience so pervasive where they’re from, and now in a galaxy far away the show of it is almost too personal, tenfold as intimate and exhilarating.

 

Truly, they’re the life of the party, dead center of the floor as everyone cheers them on, even if they have no clue what’s going on.

 

And at the crescendo of it, right before the classic bridge where everyone should ideally start head-banging, Keith tugs on his toga and leans up close so he can be heard over the noise.

 

“Hey, let’s blow this joint,” he laughs into his ear, fingers curling around his wrist and leading him down the stairs.

 

Lance obliges, wordlessly, watching the blur of Komians follow Hunk and Pidge’s lead in head-banging in a giant tidal wave all around them. For all the difficulty he’s been having staying on his feet, Keith is surprisingly good at guiding them through without running into any obstacles, though the wave of the crowd almost seems to be parting for them. Keith turns back to look at him over his shoulder as he pulls him along, flashing a smile that feels like it’s hitting the core of his soul.

 

“That was pretty cool, right? I’ve always wanted to say that.”

 

* * *

 

 

Down a twisting, narrow path, over ancient cobblestones, across an embankment in the woods - Keith leads him, and Lance follows, not sure how Keith’s blitzed brain can even remember this trek they had made hours ago when they first got here. He doesn’t know where or why Keith is leading them here, but the thoughts of where this could possibly go is spinning his head around in about ten more directions, a jumble of dirty thoughts and scenarios that he can’t staunch with this much of a buzz flowing in his veins.

 

Focus, he needs to focus. Clearly, Keith doesn't know what he's doing right now. 

 

The air is warmer here, strange sounds of wildlife making various noises as they draw deeper into the woods, and Lance gets so caught in wondering if Komium has similar seasons to Earth that when he realizes Keith isn’t holding his wrist anymore, it’s too late.

 

A loud splash in front of him gets his full attention.

 

“Keith!” He stretches out his arm, but only gets a wave of water soaking his toga as he catches the tail end of Keith cannon-balling straight into some glittering, golden lake.

 

Worriedly, he stares at the spot where he disappeared under the surface, until Keith resurfaces and spits water up, looking entirely too happy about almost giving Lance a heart-attack. “Hey, the water feels great, come in!”

 

The force of the jump must have been harder than he’s acting like it felt, because Lance notices with his pulse pounding hard, that Keith’s toga is gone and he’s staring at nothing but his bare chest as he stands in the shallow water.

 

“Uh, you know what, I think I might be good here--”

 

“Laaamee,” Keith taunts, only swimming out further, “Bet you’re just scared!”

 

Lance finds he probably has no choice in the matter but to go in to keep Keith from drowning, no choice if he wants to avenge being made fun of. Scared? Yeah right. What is there to be scared of? It’s just Keith, mostly naked, swimming completely shitfaced in gold-colored water on an alien planet where god knows what might be lurking underneath the surface.

 

He gives a running start, sprints to the edge and bolts off the small rock Keith originally must have launched himself from, taking a deep breath and plugging his nose before he plunges into its sparkling depths.

 

It doesn’t take him long to discover Keith is crazy, because the water is absolutely _freezing_.

 

Things also get a little more weird when he runs right into Keith, resurfacing with a gasp at the shock of the cold, and he’s painfully aware of one of the main reasons he didn’t want to go into the water in the first place - mostly naked Keith aside.

 

To make matters worse, Keith’s arms encircle around him in a hug as he goes on about some nonsense about ‘getting him’, hands fumbling accidentally - or at least, Lance supposes it’s accidentally - to the flesh of his ass, which is barred completely to the freezing chill of water and now the hot touch of Keith’s fingers as the hem of his toga floats up.

 

Keith’s hands are flying off of him about as fast as they originally reached out to tug him down the stairs earlier.

 

“Ah.” Keith makes a strangled sort of sound deep in the back of his throat, sinking deeper into the water in shame until only his eyes and nose are visible. “So _that’s_ why you didn’t want to come in.”

 

Lance goes rigid, still recovering from what he’s pretty sure was just Keith groping his ass. He’s holding his arms awkwardly above the surface, watching water drip from the now ten times as heavy drenched material of his toga currently weighing him down.

 

“Um, yeah. G-great observation, buddy.”

 

Keith clears his throat, eyes drifting cautiously back to him. “Fuck it, then,” he says, furrowing his brows in determination, and then he’s doing something that almost makes Lance swim immediately back to shore to maybe retreat into the safety of some cave somewhere where he can more easily enjoy his days living a less complicated life.

 

The wet ball of Keith’s boxers goes soaring past Lance’s dumbfounded face, landing with a splash not really all that far away, but the dramatic effect has most certainly gotten Keith’s point across - whatever the fuck that even is anymore.

 

“There,” Keith says with finality, as if that explains everything. “Now we match, and it’s tot--” He pauses to hiccup a few times. “--totally fine.”

 

“Oh my god, Keith,” Lance snorts, pulled somewhere between being incredibly turned on and dying from the hilarity of the way Keith is acting. “Why would you do that?! Dude, where...where are you even gonna get another pair of boxers like that? What a, what a waste. That is just...now that is just plain reckless.”

 

“Dunno. A space mall, maybe? Least I was wearing some in the first place,” Keith chides indignantly, paddling a little closer to Lance. He flips onto his back and sighs, doing a lazy backstroke towards him. “Feels nice though. You should...”

 

He reaches out those uncharacteristically grabby hands again as he floats by, tugging at the sash of his toga playfully.

 

Whether it’s a mix of the heat of the alcohol and his brain repeating ‘Holy shit, Keith is naked right next to me’ over and over again, or just his imagination running wild, Lance catches an underlying suggestion laced around what Keith says next.

 

“...try it yourself and take this stupid thing off. It’s too hot for this shit.” Keith zips behind him, pushes his hands onto Lance’s shoulders and leans in close to speak directly into his ear, “Aren’t you hot, Lance?”

 

Lance spins around fast, paddling just far enough away to better keep an eye on him, because holy shit. He’s pretty sure he almost just had another heart-attack, and he most definitely is hot in so many ways now - though probably not in the same manner Keith is insinuating.

 

Keith slaps a hand against his own cheek, seemingly unaware of the panicked state Lance is in, and drags his fingers over his face. “My face is burning, Lance. I feel like I’m on fire. Like actual fire, like I thought I was earlier.” His grin falls a little. “I’m not, am I?”

 

Lance reassures him that he isn’t.

 

Keith sighs in relief. “Oh, good.”

 

“Uh, j-just so you know, it wasn’t my idea. B-bex told me, told me we weren’t supposed to wear underwear with our...” Lance begins to explain, but pauses as his brain catches up with his words.

 

He tries to process both what’s off about Bex suggesting with a smile and a wink earlier not to wear his boxers as ‘per their tradition’, at the same time that he realizes Keith basically just ordered him to strip. He gulps.

 

“Fuck Bex,” Keith scowls, spitting some water from his mouth and raising both hands to apparently flip off the sky in her memory. “Bex can suuuuuck a dick.”

 

“I feel like that...probably wouldn’t have been much of a punishment for her, but uh…”

 

Lance shifts his gaze. Keith said he should take off his clothes, and his fingers are surprisingly itching to obey. There’s still no one around, and he for once doesn’t get the feeling he’s being watched. He sucks in as much air as his lungs will allow, then pushes it all out in one go.

 

“...okay,” he croaks.

 

And with that, off the soggy toga is flying hopefully into the direction of the shore, but Lance isn’t really thinking about the future of what he’s even going to wear later if it doesn’t make it, because Keith’s full attention is definitely on him - and thrilling doesn’t even begin to cover the way it feels as that hot gaze drags over every bit of his newly exposed skin.

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock!”

 

The din of the party grows dimmer as more and more Komians leave and couple off, to slip away and probably move somewhere more private, as more pass out by the stairs, or sit docilely swaying back and forth on the floor.

 

Hunk finds it all sort of fuzzy as this point, watching with bleary, bloodshot eyes as Coran does a one-handed keg stand nearby. It’s impressive, definitely, but he gets the feeling something...is missing. Pidge is below on the dance floor, belting Christmas songs and swinging around a younger looking female Komian who has bright, glinting blue hair. They’re laughing, and Hunk thinks she’s teaching her the tango or something, because Pidge does a complicated, fancy dip, twirling the girl and linking their hands dramatically when they straighten back up.

 

Everything is comforting, gentle, the swell of warmth in his belly and the atmosphere making him feel fuller than any meal could. And yet, something is…

 

“Oh, shit!” Hunk scrambles down the stairs precariously, calling out to Pidge, “Pidge! Where did Lance and Keith go? I think they got lost!”

 

Pidge continues her dance, and the Komian girl giggles. She shrugs into the movement as she struts across the floor. “Who knows, they’re probably off getting busy somewhere.”

 

“Do you think they’re okay? What if they got eaten by some monster or something?” He presses, because he can faintly remember Pidge telling him about all those recording devices earlier, so maybe there is hope yet to save Keith and Lance from some vicious alien if they can hear their cries for help. “Shouldn't we go and try to find them?”

 

Pidge laughs, twirls the girl around again. “Hell no, I don’t want to be scarred forever.”

 

“But what if they got lost? What if they are, as we speak, in the jaws of a hungry alien monster or captured by space pirates or--”

 

“Hunk, they’re fine, calm down,” she sighs, finally stopping to place a reassuring hand on his shoulder. The Komian girl looks on curiously, cat-like eyes acutely taking in their conversation.

 

“Look.” Pidge pulls something out of her pocket, pops open some paper thing in her hands that Hunk faintly recognizes as one of her santa hats. “Keith entrusted me with his santa hat before he went, told me to ‘guard it with my life’, and that he was going to go off to ‘show Lance a good time’ and really 'give it to him good'. I don’t know about you, but I am _not_ about to stumble in on whatever the hell that is supposed to mean.”

 

“Oh, uh, w-well then...that’s uh...” Hunk stutters, though he relaxes at the new information. “I guess that does sound pretty gay.”

 

Sure, they’ll probably be fine, he tries to reassure himself. He falls back towards the steps, lets Pidge enjoy her time dancing with her new friend.

 

Of course. What kind of trouble they could possibly get up to on this innocuous, quirky planet anyway?

 

* * *

 

 

The first thing Keith does, after staring for an indiscernible amount of time with his nose scrunched and frozen like a deer-in-the-headlights, is to cup his face into his hands and groan. Lance’s hubris deflates a little at that. It’s not exactly the reaction he was hoping for.

 

“So, so, pretty,” comes the muffled words Lance can barely make out from behind his palms, “Fuck you, who gave you the right.”

 

“Uh…”

 

Lance feels a little more self-conscious than he’s imagined he would. He always thought that if this moment ever came, he’d strut around bare-assed and owning the shit out of it, but now he’s not so sure. He’s thankful at least for the small bit of cover the water provides.

 

“Ugh, shoulda never said that,” Keith bemoans, peeking through his fingers, “Your head’s already humongous.”

 

Lance frowns, wrapping his arms around his bare chest as he scowls at Keith, shivering away the last of the chill of the water. First, the man tells him he’s beautiful and pretty and to take his goddamn clothes off, and then the next second he’s saying he has a huge head. What the fuck.

 

“Wow, thanks Keith. Tell me how you really feel.”

 

“N-no, uh, didn’t mean it like _that_. I meant, like, you know,” Keith waves a hand, flinging water back and forth as he does. “That thing. Where your head is just...super big...”

 

It takes Lance a moment to reach within the foggy recesses of his mind to recall what he means. He puts a hand on his hip and stares up, searching for the answers in the stars until it comes to him. “Wait, do you mean being _full of yourself_..?”

 

Keith points and snaps his fingers, jumping in excitement and transcending to yet another level of adorableness. “Yeah, that!” He nods his head. “That’s you, dude.”

 

Lance grins, proud he could find the words when Keith couldn’t, until he realizes he’s basically just been insulted. “Hey, what? Not cool! I am _not_ ‘big-headed’!”

 

Keith giggles, pulling a little closer. It’s looks like he’s attempting to be discreet about it, but Lance doesn’t see why he bothers when his stumbling is causing him to splash pretty obviously. Regardless, he plays along and pretends he doesn’t notice.

 

“Bulllllllllshit. Your britches are two sizes much too large!” Keith jeers, splashing him.

 

“S-shut up!”

 

Lance finally begins to move, treading closer to Keith. He thinks about how he’s going to make him pay for teasing and splashing him, how it might be nice to get him under his grasp and watch him squirm.

 

The second he thinks that, the second he regrets his poor choice of words.

 

“My pants and head are both, uh, normal sizes, thank you very much!”

 

As he pushes forward, the water feels a lot thicker than he thinks water should probably feel, but he isn’t going to question it. The glitter in it seems to shift and stick to him when he lifts his arms to swim.

 

“Nope, they’re extra-large sizes.” Keith throws his arms up, flinging water towards the sky. It rains back down on them, looking a lot like liquid flakes of golden confetti in the red twilight.  “Because your ego is basically as big as this _whole_ shitty planet!”

 

Lance is only a few feet away, preparing for a fight or something, maybe - though that doesn’t feel exactly right. “Why you little mullet shit, you better take that back!” he warns.

 

Keith shakes his head, grin a mile long.

 

“Oh, yeah?” He drawls, crossing his arms. Lance isn’t sure how or when it happened, but they’re so close now their noses are practically touching. Keith blows hot air into his face forcefully, eyes falling half-lidded as he proposes the challenge, “And what’re you gonna do if I _don’t_?”

 

“I’m--” Lance falters, watching Keith carefully, very aware of the heat emanating off him and the complete lack of clothing between them. “I’m gonna…”

 

What in the world was he even planning to do? He doesn’t know anymore. Keith’s eyes are gorgeous, water is clinging to his reddened lips, and his skin is glinting, reflecting tenfold its usual light with its paleness. Bathed in the eerie red moonlight, he looks ethereal, like some mystical being that rose straight from the lake to maybe cast an incredibly gay curse on him. Lance lets his gaze fall lower, to where the rest of Keith’s bare skin is obscured by water from the waist down, imagines what he might find if he were to go under the surface and open his eyes.

 

“B-beautiful,” Keith blurts out of nowhere, raising a hand to touch Lance’s cheek. The rise of it is cautious, hesitant. The tips of Lance’s ears burn at the contact, at Keith’s words, at the way his stare seems to bore holes straight into his soul. He’s not so sure he can handle this again.

 

“Huh?”

 

The pads of Keith’s fingers are like velvet, and Lance leans into them as Keith moves with the lightest touch, trails them down to his chin and across the pulse thrumming in his neck.

 

“Don’t be mad,” Keith breathes, and he says it so quietly, so softly, that time seems to come to a screeching halt around them.

 

He lets his head fall to the side as he stares up at him. His lashes glisten with wetness, his hair is a mess of tangles and curls, though it doesn’t completely obscure the gentle quirk of his lips. He draws aimless patterns over Lance’s collarbone, and Lance feels drunker off the scent of him alone, the heady, sweetness of his shampoo combined with the sharp tang of alcohol. Lance slips a hand to cup the back of Keith’s neck, tugging him closer, because _that’s_ what feels right.

 

“Cause that’s you, too,” Keith murmurs across his lips with a laugh, “Beautiful blue you.”

 

And finally Lance does the only thing that’s appropriate, the only thing he really ever planned to do - really ever _wanted_ to do.

 

He kisses him.

 

* * *

 

 

“Coran,” Hunk yawns, back to back with Coran on the bottom step, “Y’know man, your cooking isn’t actually that bad. I just...just wanted you to know that.”

 

Coran loops a finger through his mustache and nods. “I appreciate that. Thank you, Hunk. You’re not bad yourself, I suppose.”

 

“Dude, truce?” Hunk says, closing his eyes.

 

“Mmm,” Coran drinks some of his water, twisting around to pat Hunk’s back. “I don’t know what that means, but I think I should agree, so sure.”

 

Pidge shakes her head as she watches them, fiddling with the various equipment of the recording devices. Afraid of hearing a little more than she’d like, she had turned off the remote ones in the woods after Keith had left with Lance earlier.

 

Besides, she had more than enough amazing material to work with for later.

 

As she leans back by the karaoke machine, her fingers resume their work braiding the blue strands of hair clasped in her hands. The girl, Trin - of course Pidge recalls her name, being probably the only one in the entire room with more than half a mind left - is softly trying to sing along with ‘ _All I want for Christmas is You_ ’. Her tune is way off, but Pidge appreciates it nonetheless. She has a nice voice, a pretty face, so an off-color remix is perfectly fine with her.

 

 _Yes_ , Pidge thinks with a sigh, brushing back stray hairs, twisting them around fluidly as the recorder saves this moment forever, with Trin singing and Coran and Hunk being huge nerds in the background of the breaking purple dawn of zombified, intensely hungover Komians.

 

Some things were better left to be as they were.

  


* * *

 

 

“ _Dios_ , eres tremendo mango, Keith,” the words tumble immediately off Lance’s loose lips as he pulls away, shudders out a long breath. [1]

 

A shock of electricity is jittering from his lips, buzzing out to every nerve ending on his skin. It had only been a second, but oh god, he actually did it this time. He kissed Keith. On the lips. His head is reeling, and it surely isn’t purely from inebriation. That was a thing that most definitely just happened, and now he’s saying embarrassing things to him in Spanish. Oh dear fucking god. He’s going to die.

 

Lance stumbles back and trips over something hard like a rock sticking out through the sand, almost slipping beneath the surface in surprise. He pulls his feet up in order to tread water to stay afloat.

Keith tilts his head, drawing in closer to him again. Before Lance can fully comprehend everything that’s happened, he’s wrapping his arms around his waist, sloshing water, nuzzling his face into the crook of Lance’s neck like a particularly pleased cat. He isn’t pulling back, or storming off to the shore, or making fun of Lance. He’s only giggling, pressing his mouth chastely to his collarbone, skimming his hands idly up and down his arms. Lance wonders if maybe this is just another one of his crazy dreams again, because it sure as hell can’t be reality.

 

“I mean, yeah, I guess I am kind of a fruit?” Keith murmurs against his skin, blowing puffs of breath so warm Lance is positive his own temperature raises yet another several degrees. He laughs again, struggles to enunciate as he continues, “Shhhuch...you’ve such a way with words, Lance.”

 

Lance shakes his head, quakes with laughter and pulls Keith in closer to him. Since he’d realized Keith could understand Spanish, he’d been automatically using more slang lately to throw him off, but he decides the boy deserves to be as flustered as he has been all night.

 

He pushes at Keith to get him to move back so he can properly see his face, smirks and lifts a hand to cup his chin. Keith’s face morphs from amused to more bashful, unsure.

 

“No, no, no.” He’s drawing his thumb across Keith’s mouth, willing it not to shake too much. The warmth of the alcohol thrums through his veins, amplifies every bit of contact they make. “No. Es expresión de Cubano. ‘Mango’ significa lo mismo que ' _guapo'_ , Keith.” Lance shakes his other hand in a so-so motion, flush amplifying. “Ah, m-mas o menos...” [2]

 

“Oh,” Keith blanches, his eyes widening and showing off the clear dilation of his pupils. The red moonlight mixes with deep blue, giving them a strange, alluring purple glint. “ _Oh_.”

 

Lance enjoys the way he flounders, how he stumbles over syllables to form words that end up coming out not making any sense at all. He tries to imagine what sort of inner monologue is going on in Keith’s head right then, what kinds of things are bubbling under that mysterious emotional barrier he’s always defensively putting up. He wonders if his thoughts race much like his own, wonders if he fights past structured, pretend conversations, struggling to find the right way to say something.

 

Eventually, with furrowed brows and his own finger joining to perch against his pursed lips thoughtfully, Keith admits, “N-not sure what to say, sorry.”

 

He’s looking small again in the moonlight now, small like he did the other night. The water is an overlarge sweatshirt that dwarfs him, the darkness around them like baggy sweatpants, the light glinting off the surface reminiscent of pale, bony feet.

 

Feeling more encouraged by any lack of obvious rejection, Lance closes the space between them once more, disturbed a little by the night and the currents that seem to swallow Keith whole. The lack of space becomes more comforting the closer he gets. It reminds him of home. It reminds him of friends and family, of the comfort of so many people loving and caring about him. He places a palm on either side of Keith’s face.

 

“Maybe ‘thank you’?” Lance suggests.

 

It’s more teasing than anything, he could care fuck all less about what Keith may or may not say in response to a compliment, let alone if he was polite at all. As far as he’s concerned, in that moment, Keith could even tell him he killed a man once, and Lance would probably just hug him.

 

Keith stares at him for what feels like forever, only blinking and swaying a little with the motion of the currents. Absently, he slices his hand through the water, and they both watch silently as the ripples expand, twinkling in small, golden waves towards the shore. Drawn to touch him more, Lance brushes some of Keith’s damp bangs away from his face and tucks them behind his ear.

 

Then Keith is kissing him suddenly, tenderly, like he’s dealing with the finest of china. He mimics the rhythm Lance sets after the initial shock, lips slanting firmly when Lance presses eagerly into him, but only very tentatively does he begin to push back and move. Their teeth knock into each other a bit, and Lance gets the impression that maybe Keith hasn’t done this much, if at all. Clumsy, fumbling fingers come to tangle in his hair, his breath hitches and sticks tight in his throat. Any lingering thoughts leave him completely as he inhales, exhales not just the taste of Keith, but the very essence of him.

 

Keith keens into him with a whine when Lance sucks back on his lower lip, worries it idly between his teeth. Strands of wet hair tickle lightly against his neck. He isn’t so much as acutely aware of the vulnerable nudity of their bodies as he is enjoying pushing a knee between Keith’s legs, relishing the pleasurable slide of the way their slick, bare skin rubbing together prickling tiny sparks up his spine through the cool of the water.

 

Lance catalogues every noise, each unique soft moan and whimper that tumbles into his mouth, forever into his memory like an etch-a-sketch forming lines that cannot be erased. Unlike his dreams, he discovers he isn’t in any particular hurry to relieve the aching tension that sits low in his stomach and groin. He just wants to be here, to feel this, to hold Keith and treat him the way he deserves to be treated.

 

Time slows and flips and stutters in a wildly spinning blur of blues and reds and purples around them. Hands are leaving his hair to explore further down, fluttering over his chest, leaving burning imprints as they travel a slow, curious path to his navel. His own fingers fall to grip the soft flesh of Keith’s waist as they meld against each other. He’s opening his mouth, waiting patiently until Keith’s tongue pushes shyly through. If this is maybe what drowning feels like, Lance is completely fine with letting Keith take the last of his oxygen.

 

When they finally part, Keith continues touching him, exploring at a pretty defined edge right above the slope of his hips. Lance grips his shoulders tightly as he fights to catch his breath, for some reason afraid Keith might float away if he doesn’t.

 

Keith gives a lopsided smile, all drowsy and satisfied. Along his cheeks play wildly shifting swatches of lights and darks, of deep red and blue hues, a complex mix of the moonlight and water. When he speaks again, Lance feels the sound vibrate directly into his chest.

 

“Thanks.”  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] “God, you’re so beautiful/hot, Keith.”  
> [2] “No. It’s a Cuban expression. ‘Mango’ means the same as ‘guapo’, Keith. Ah, more or less...” 
> 
>  
> 
> To explain a little, Cubans use ‘mango/mangón’ as slang for a meaning sort of similar to ‘guapo’ or maybe ‘hermoso’ (handsome/beautiful/pretty/hot/sexy, etc). Literally, yes, calling them a mango (sweet and juicy like a fruit, tempting to eat, pretty sexual insinuation there….). ‘Tremendo mango’ = the literal equivalent of calling Keith a ‘big fruit’. I guess it can have some different connotations depending on context, and I thought it’d be more of a Lance way to tell Keith he’s beautiful, as it’s used often as an exclamation like, ‘Damn, you’re hot’. Hence why he says ‘more or less’, since he’s basically like ‘ohhh god fuck me you’re smokin’. It’s also a term of endearment, like as in ‘mi mango/manguito’, which is just adorable (‘my little mango’). Anyway, same meaning in the long run, just more flirtatious and obviously less formal. So no real harm done to Keith, haha. Will Lance ever explain the deeper meaning behind it? Only time will tell…..(also my Spanish is a bit on the rusty side, so if there’s any mistakes, please let me know!)
> 
>  
> 
> Fuck you, Moth. I made them hold hands in space and there’s nothing you can do about, because I know you loved every minute of it. I foreshadowed this from the very beginning. _Keith That’s Gay_ wouldn’t even exist if Lance hadn’t started lusting after Keith because of his hands ok. Get with it Moth


	11. Anyone Who Knows What Love Is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I just feel so sorry for the ones who pity me.  
> 'Cause they just don't know,  
> Oh, they don't what happiness love can be."

Before Shiro can stop her, Allura is halfway across the courtyard, already being lifted from her feet into a handstand over what appears to be a Komian keg. The locals surrounding her cheer and count, and Shiro can’t figure out if _‘briggard’_ is an impressive number or not, but he figures that she’s probably set some kind of record with the way that everyone yells.

She stumbles away, hollering loudly at the crowd, “ _Princess Allura is in the quiz-a-nakking house_!”

Shiro rolls his eyes, shielding his face with his hand as she tears a few drinks from the table and downs them in one gulp.

Okay, maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe he was wrong about this entire thing.

“Princess,” he sighs, working his way through the throngs of Komians until he reaches her, “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

He pulls an unsteady Allura away from the cheering crowd, shaking his head as a smile plays across his lips. His entire body tingles with his buzz, the vibrations of the Komians’ yells and laughter thrumming through him like a thousand tiny heartbeats.

Allura makes a flexing motion, losing her footing before she falls into him.

He tries to tell himself that she isn’t absolutely gorgeous like this, still, despite everything.

As the alcohol begins to settle into her veins, as the high of her buzz melts into dull exhaustion, and she all but drops into his arms and allows him to carry her away, she smiles at him—full, parted, booze-soaked lips, half-lidded eyes fading slowly from golden and black back to their familiar, breath-taking blue.

He could kiss her now, he thinks, in the scarlet puddle of the moon, among the chatter of the crowd, as the stars twinkle far off in the distant universe, and everything melds together into a blurry grayscale but Allura—so proud and strong and beautiful, gazing up at him, fitting like the missing piece of a puzzle right in his arms.

Instead, he straightens her out a little, clears his throat and wills those thoughts away. He allows her to rest her weight against his shoulder. He helps her through the maze of Komian bodies, through the gnarled trees and otherworldly flora back to the ship.

The doors hiss open as he passes through. The castle hums back to life—the lights so bright and jarring that he squints his eyes and gropes a free hand against the wall to steady himself. Allura is murmuring drunken gibberish, her fingers tangled tightly in his toga. She’s saying something about Voltron, then she’s talking about Coran. She says something about how cute the guys on Komium are, then something about Keith and Lance wandering off alone.

He makes a mental note to go and find them later. His thoughts clear gradually, his drunkenness easing off as he toes the door to her bedroom and argues with himself internally about whether or not he should have her change into her pajamas so he can return her toga to the Komians.

That can probably wait until morning. Even thinking about the fabric sliding down over those perfect, smooth shoulders—down the slope of full breaths, over a toned stomach and the wide, soft curves of her hips, the warmth that he might still feel in the garment once she hands it over, the scent of her still clinging to it like lemony, sugar-coated smoke—

God, he needs to stop thinking about this.

He helps her into bed, easing the blankets over her torso, and making sure that she’s laying on her side just in case she gets sick. As an afterthought, he drags a trashcan—er, at least something that looks like it might be a trashcan—over to the side of the bed, whispering to her gently that it’s there if she needs it.

He’s pulling away, intent on wrangling the rest of the group and bringing them in for the night, when Allura’s fingers wind themselves in the fabric of his toga once again, tugging him forward, so close that their noses sit mere centimeters apart.

Glassy eyes crack open. She watches him through thick, dark lashes for what feels like several eternities.

“Shiro,” she breathes into the silence, sending a hot knot of something completely, utterly inappropriate shooting straight down to the pits of his belly, “Sh-Shiro—I—after… after I learned that my father had died, I—”

Her eyes droop closed, her grip on the front of his clothing weakening. With what seems to be the last of her strength, she peers up at him once more: tired, intoxicated, vulnerable in a way that sends all of the warning bells in his head into a panic.

“I was afraid…” her words trail off, and he _knows_. He understands the feeling. He knows how it feels to wake up afraid, to jolt out of bed in the night, grasping at the darkness for answers to all of the questions that he’s always been too terrified to ask. He understands the humiliation, the discomfort that comes with not remembering, having been but the ghost of a memory in everyone else’s lives, as the world grew older around him and he’d stayed rooted in one spot. A strange sort of hurt splits open in his chest, a pounding ache that stings right down to his bones, “I was afraid… to love anyone again.”

His breath catches in his throat. He tries to pull away, but her fingers tighten again, tugging him even closer. Her breath smells like alcohol. It’s hot and dewey against his sweaty cheeks. He can barely make out the dots of tears staining her eyelashes. He knows that she’ll regret this in the morning. He knows that she would never tell him this if she knew what was going on. Guilt tugs at his heart.

“B-but Shiro,” she releases him slowly, closing her eyes a final time, “You… you make me want to try.”

He takes this moment fondly, filing it away in the overflowing bank of memories that he won’t ever allow himself to think about ever again.

Blaming the alcohol, blaming the heat of the moment, blaming anything that he thinks might allow him to sleep better tonight, he leans forward, pressing a gentle kiss against her forehead.

Gingerly, he tells her to get some rest.

And on rubbery legs, with a thousand thoughts swirling through his brain so quickly that he thinks he might get sick, he stumbles out into the hallway, telling himself that gathering everyone back at the castle is the most important thing in the universe right now.

Anything, he tells himself, to allow all of the spots where Allura’s bare skin brushed against his to finally cool off.

 

* * *

 

Back on shore, on a blanket of Keith’s damp toga spread out over the pebbles and soft, dusty sand, they’re a tangle of naked limbs wound together like the gnarled vines of the trees obscuring the night sky.

Keith pushes a little further forward, wet, sweaty bangs tickling against Lance’s nose as Keith’s clammy lips peck against his for what feels like the millionth time tonight. Strangely enough, despite the heat, despite the tension building gradually between them since they’d started drinking hours ago, Lance finds that there’s nothing erotic about this current situation. If anything, he just feels tired.

Maybe tired isn’t actually the right word. Sleepy, maybe, a blissful sort of exhaustion tugging down his eyelids and vibrating across this skin. The gentle lull of Keith’s chest rising and falling against him, the muscle memory of the waves tugging him back and forth, the quiet murmuring of Komian wildlife like a lullaby far-off in the distance—Lance tries to remind himself that falling asleep here might not be the best idea, especially in his current state of dress, which... really isn’t any sort of dress at all.

The sound of the music reverberates through the trees, some old love song that Lance recognizes from one of his mother’s favorite CDs back home. All of this is entirely too surreal—trudging up old memories, the sting of his loneliness, the blossoming of new emotions finally awakening inside of him. It feels like too much all at once. He’s too tired to be feeling so many things at the same time—too sensitive, too overstimulated.The only comfort is Keith’s warmth wrapped around him, and the soft kisses pressing against his lips and the corners of his mouth, his cheeks, and sometimes even his drooping eyelids.

If he didn’t know any better, he might think that Keith just can’t get enough of him.

Before he can delve too far into this thought, however, he picks up a soft rumbling between them—a strange sort of vibration that it takes him a moment to realize is actually Keith humming along to the music. In all of their time together, he’s never considered what sort of songs Keith actually likes to listen to.

If he were honest with himself, he’d say that he’d imagined screamo or some lame, melodramatic lyrics droned along with low bass riffs or… maybe some sort of cross between emo and electronica, he has no idea. Maybe Keith would be the sort of person who claimed to hate all genres equally. Maybe the only music that Lance had ever imagined him listening to were those weird “Sounds of Nature” tapes that his aunt who obsessively bragged about doing yoga was always going on about.

Despite this, as though only to add to everything else that’s so absolutely, mind-numbingly bizarre about tonight, Keith is humming along to some song that’s surely straight out of the 1950’s. Something so old and relatively unknown that he’s surprised that Pidge even has it on her playlist. Maybe her mom listens to it too.

Maybe it reminds her of home.

He draws in a deep breath, trying not to think about that too much.

He opens his eyes a little wider, taking in the contrast of Keith’s dark lashes against his pale skin, kiss-swollen lips warm and pink as they press against his cheeks and pull away. His breath is hot, coming out in slow puffs, as he combs his fingers through Lance’s hair.

The humming grows louder as the singer begins the lyrics, and to Lance’s surprise, so does Keith.

_“You can blame me, try to shame me, and still, I’ll care for you.”_

Keith’s eyes crack open—glassy and hooded, deep purples shrouded in shadow as he ghosts his thumbs over Lance’s cheeks. There’s something about his drunken smile—something sad, maybe, something hollow, and Lance decides that he doesn’t like it one bit.

“You can run around,” Keith pauses to hiccup, missing the next string of lines as he struggles to compose himself, but even still, he continues where he left off, so far behind that his words jumble with the singer’s, “even put me down… s-still, I’ll be there for… for you.”

His voice, while whispered and slurred, is a lot prettier than Lance would have imagined. His thumbs are working slow circles over Lance’s cheeks, dipping lower every line or so to brush against his lips. The entire ordeal is strangely even more overwhelming than anything else tonight, and Lance struggles to figure out what he can do to lighten the mood a little.

“A-ah, Keith, uh… My mom likes this song, dude. What—w-what the Hell?”

His pitiful little laugh does nothing to make any of this less awkward. Keith only smiles—wider, so that his teeth twinkle under the red light of the moon, under the dawn breaking slowly over the horizon, with something small and shadowed still writhing deep within his eyes. Lance wants nothing more than to kiss him.

Anything, he thinks, to make that sadness and that loneliness finally go away.

“J-just—just _shhhh_ ,” Keith presses a finger roughly over Lance’s lips, furrowing his brows as the song continues to play softly in the distance, “I—I’m trying to knock you over.”

Lance pulls back, cocking his head to the side.

“Y-you’re… you’re what?”

“Your feet, I—I’m trying to knock them off… of you.”

“You’re… you’re trying to knock me off of my feet?”

With an excited sort of hum, Keith nods vigorously, pressing their foreheads together and planting another gentle kiss against Lance’s lips.

“Yeah, that thing. I’m trying to do that thing.”

As Lance listens to the song slowly fading out, he remembers the way that his mother used to dance around in the kitchen while it played. He remembers the subtle waves of her dress as she whisked past, how her smile had been ten times warmer than any summer that he’d ever experienced on the beaches in his hometown—how she would grasp his wrists gently when he was young and let him stand on her feet as she danced.

He remembers feeling as though he could do anything back then. He remembers feeling as though no one could ever make him feel more powerful, more worthy of love than his mother.

“My mom liked this song too,” Keith whispers against his skin, nuzzling closer, “I remember her singing it… when I was little.”

Lance doesn’t know how to reply. He allows the silence to settle over them like a warm blanket, allows himself to listen without saying anything that might ruin the moment.

“She… she used to say that it reminded her of my dad,” Keith laughs then, unguarded and raw, unlike anything that Lance has ever heard before, “Never met him though, so I… I don’t know.”

His fingers continue to play through Lance’s hair, knotting some pieces, combing through others. He smells like the water—like earth and salt—and he smells like alcohol and the sugary sweetness of his shampoo. Lance feels drunk again, just from breathing it in. He feels as though they could spend the rest of eternity here, as Zarkon makes his destructive rounds through the universe, and maybe things could still be okay in the end.

“I think,” Keith pauses, clearing his throat, “I think it reminds me of you. Of… of me and you.”

Another laugh—like music, like the saddest song that Lance can ever recall hearing back home—as his fingers stop moving through his hair, and Keith pulls himself ever-so-slightly away.

“Because… because I’m always chasing you,” his eyes fall closed again, features softening as sleep threatens to take hold of him, “and even—even if you hate me… I think… I’d still chase you.”

Maybe, Lance thinks, he might be better equipped to deal with this confession in the morning. Maybe when they wake up, all of Keith’s loneliness will finally slip away.

And maybe, with time, they can teach each other to be happy—but not now.

No, right now, all that Lance can do is sleep, nestled comfortably in Keith’s arms, pretending that nothing out there in the wide, wide universe could ever tear them apart.

 

* * *

 

Shiro pushes through the dwindling crowd, searching out his teammates in all of the places that he remembers seeing them throughout the night.

He finds Pidge first—slumbering against a pillar on the stage, cuddling Rover close to her chest as though its jagged edges aren’t digging uncomfortably into her skin. He finds Hunk soon after, passed out at the bottom of the stairs. He tells himself that he’ll come back for him in a minute, scooping Pidge into his arms and carrying her back to the ship.

Pidge mumbles nonsense as he tucks her in. He brushes a greasy, glittery tuft of hair out of her eyes, chuckling softly as he spots the smudged remains of the eyebrows that the Komians had drawn on her her earlier in the night.

Hunk makes his way back into his room with an arm over Shiro’s shoulder. He’s asking any passing Komian if they have to-go boxes for the food. He falls into his bed with little grace, and he falls asleep immediately after.

Coran is dragging himself into his room as Shiro heads out in search of Keith and Lance. They talk briefly, Shiro informing him that Allura is already in her room, Coran muttering something about Altean hangover cures that might be possible to concoct with the ingredients on the ship.

Once he makes his way back out onto Komium, he asks every local that he can find if they’ve seen the Red and Blue paladins. Each alien shakes their head, seeming to be impervious to the hangover already turning his own stomach, but he tells himself that someone out there must know where they’ve went.

It’s fine, he tells himself. They’re safe. Allura already explained that the wildlife here is gentle, nothing could have attacked them. They’re probably just sleeping somewhere. They’re probably perfectly okay.

With a completely casual gait, he pushes through the trees, nearly tripping over his feet as he _calmly_ rushes through the woods in search of them. He calls out their names, still a little unsteady from the alcohol, thoughts still muddied as they try to piece together what could have happened during the night to lead Lance and Keith so far away from the group.

He knows that Lance is a little naive. He might have wandered off with a cute girl with less than pure intentions—and probably not even impure in the way that Lance was hoping, either. But Keith is smarter. Keith wouldn’t have let that happen. Keith…

God, Keith isn’t so smart when it comes to Lance, however. With the two of them together, really, anything could have happened.

He’s growing only more anxious as he reaches a clearing by the shore. He’s tripping over rocks, feet sinking into the sand, shielding his eyes as the sun reflects bright and golden off of the water, when he nearly steps right on top of two bodies curled together on top of what appears to be a soaking wet toga—splayed out like a beach towel.

For a moment, he simply stares. This can’t possibly be real.

Keith and Lance, sleeping peacefully, wrapped up in each other’s ams. With all of the fighting, all of the animosity and discomfort between them lately, he never could have known that one night of drinking could not only resolve the issues between them, but this—

He tries to convince himself that there was no need for them to use protection. They couldn’t have— _could they_? Is that even possible in space? Wouldn’t it hurt a lot?

He definitely doesn’t want to be thinking about this right now, if ever. He’s entirely too exhausted. His stomach feels as though it will force out its contents any second now.

He tells himself that he’s numb to all of this as he lifts both of their naked bodies over over each shoulder—as he barely manages to grab the toga from the ground to conserve their modesty. It’s draped over his front end like a blanket, as though he’s a nursing mother shielding her baby on the subway. He feels entirely too silly. He feels as though, any second now, Lance is going to jump out of his arms and finally admit that all of this was just a really lame joke.

However, he makes it past town hall. He ventures through the assortment of trees around the castle. He drops Lance off in his room, tucking him in. He takes a moment to brush Keith’s hair out of his eyes when he places him into his own bed.

And still, no one lets him in on the joke. No one wakes up at all.

He wonders if it’s too early to start drinking again, but instead, he settles for a nap.

Whatever is going on between Keith and Lance, he’s not going to make the same mistake as before. He’ll take this secret to the grave. He’ll let them work it out on their own terms.

Even as he’s slipping away into unconsciousness, he worries about them. He wonders if Keith had faltered under Lance’s touch. He wonders if Lance finally admitted his own feelings to himself. He wonders if things will be easier now, or if they’ve only just begun to unravel a bigger, longer coil of issues.

He wonders if he can ask Allura about the existence of condoms in space without sounding too suspicious.

And he wonders, just before the world fades completely to black, if maybe someday he and Allura will fall asleep in each other's arms like that.

It can’t have been all that comfortable, but he finds that he really wouldn’t mind that at all.

 

* * *

 

Allura feels as though she’s been crushed under the weight of a thousand Voltrons when she wakes up. Her head is pounding, her entire face feeling so swollen and congested that she can barely breathe at first. It takes her a moment to register the fact that the mice are squeaking on her chest, or that there’s a gentle knocking coming from the doorframe across the room.

With bleary eyes, she finally manages to focus on Coran, smiling at her with pity and standing just a little less straight than he usually does.

“Princess, I apologize,” he tells her, considerate enough to speak softly, “But we’re leaving Komium soon. Shiro and I thought that you would like to be awake to say goodbye.”

She says something, but even she isn’t entirely sure what the incoherent gibberish that comes out of her mouth is actually supposed to mean. Nonetheless, Coran nods, telling her to get dressed and clean up before meeting the rest of the team outside.

With unsteady legs, she stumbles across the room, pulling her clothes from the closet and undressing slowly. The night prior is a blur of sights and sounds, of the warmth of Shiro’s skin so close to her, of the smell of metal, of alcohol, of sweat. She really can’t make sense of any of it.

She vaguely remembers doing a handstand, but that doesn’t make any sense, so she writes it off as a dream.

When she’s finally dressed, she works on fixing her hair, making sure that her breath doesn’t smell horrible, making sure that _she_ doesn’t smell horrible.

She catches sight of her reflection in the mirror, with her unruly hair, the makeup that she doesn’t even remember putting on smudged beneath her eyes—she looks like a hot mess. She looks like she’d spent the night sleeping in a garbage pail behind one of the many famous Altean eateries. But she doesn’t have time to fix everything.

Surely, the Komians will understand.

The sun is shining brightly as she steps down the stairs ascending from the ship. A crowd of Komians has amassed, surely clued in that they’d be leaving soon, and she takes a moment to brush down some of her heat-frizzed hair before making her way toward them.

“People of Komium,” she greets, planting on her most convincing smile, “Thank you so much for your hospitality. As Voltron pilots the universe, and as we embark on the final battle against Zarkon and his fleet, we will remember you fondly.”

She ignores the hushed whispers of _“who the fuck is Zarkon?”_ , convincing herself that not everyone on this planet can possibly be so blind and ignorant. Someone has to have had some sense around here, surely, or they wouldn’t have managed to survive long enough for their society to crumble.

With a deep sigh, she seeks out Thad within the crowd, taking his hands in hers, as he had when they first arrived.

It feels like so much time has passed since then. So many things have happened. She can barely believe that it was only yesterday, when she’d hesitated before agreeing to spend time with these people.

She catches Shiro’s eye above the crowd, sending him a small smile before turning to Thad completely.

“If your people ever need anything,” she tells him, “anything at all, do not hesitate to call for Voltron once more. When there is a planet in need, Voltron will always be there to answer the call.”

She turns then, sweeping her arms through the air as though to reference the Paladins, and only then does she discover that no one has actually made it out here but Shiro, Coran, and Pidge. Even Rover is missing.

Pidge is too busy speaking with a younger Komium female to really be much use. Allura snaps her gaze away the moment that Pidge takes the girl’s hand in her palm, kissing the top of it and whispering something to the girl that has her cheeks flushing the brightest of orange.

She sighs deeply. Leave it to the rest of them to ruin the moment. Leave it to the people of Komium not to care at all.

“Of course, babe,” Thad chirps, cocking his head to the side, waggling his eyebrows, “You can crash my party any time.”

She doesn’t remember a whole lot after that. Just her anger, her indignation, and her huffy whispers to Shiro once they return to the ship, demanding that no matter how many times Komium calls them, they will never, ever return here.

 

* * *

 

_The moonlight plays against the water, blood red seeping into the murky surface as the gentle breeze ripples towards him in waves. The sand beneath his feet is soft, the air around him is so hot and humid, thick enough that he can feel it coating the back of his throat._

_He isn’t sure what he’s doing here, why he’s groping through the darkness and pushing his way through the overbearing heat in the air with nothing protecting his body but a soaking wet toga, clinging to him like a second skin. The hooting of some alien creature, that he’s sure wouldn’t look anything like the owl that it sounds like, rings through the air. While it startles him, it does nothing to stall his blind travel through the night._

_He can barely make out the stars through the fog. They beckon him, back into space, back to their mission, so many little steps left to take until he can finally return home. That familiar loneliness sits heavily in the pit of his belly, reminding him of how much time has passed, reminding him of how much time still lies between him and the awaiting arms of all of the people who love him._

_He pushes aside the branches of a gnarled, sagging tree. He takes careful steps through the powdery sand, worrying about what sorts of creatures might lie beneath the surface, what sorts of jagged stones might be just waiting to snag against the defenseless soles of his feet._

_The moonlight shifts suddenly, as he makes his way into a clearing, and he realizes with a start that he’s no longer on Komium_ _—_ _not exactly. The sand beneath him is still weightless and soft. The air around him is still an all-consuming thing. But the flora tangling high above him, twining over the black canvas of the sky reminds him only of Androgia, and the image of a solitary figure hunched over some ways in the distance is familiar in a way that he can’t quite explain at first._

_Despite the dread building steadily within him, Lance’s feet carry him toward the figure. He can see their back expanding gently with each slow breath, and the moonlight filtering through the trees splashes lines of crimson and white over their hair and down between their shoulder blades._

_And eternity passes, and finally, Lance comes close enough to touch them._

_“Keith,” he says, because this is Keith. He remembers this, he remembers stumbling in on this very scene, despite the fact that he wasn’t strong enough to comfort him the first time, “What are you doing out here?”_

_His fingers pause just before he touches Keith’s arm. He can hear the little sniffles, the hiccups. He can smell the salt of tears in the air._

_“H-hey, hey, buddy,” Lance whispers, gulping down the growing lump in his throat as he wills himself to be strong enough to place his hand on Keith’s shoulder, “Are you okay? What’s… what’s wrong?”_

_Keith flinches, and Lance takes a fearful step back. Everything about this is wrong. Keith is wearing Komian garb, the edges of his sleeves and the hem caught in the grass beneath him charred at the edges, as though he’s been burned. It takes Lance a moment to realize that the sand beneath his feet is actually plush-soft grass, that the red moon is actually sparkling white, that the stars twinkling through the fog are closer, brighter within the clear, open sky._

_With another sniffle, Keith finally turns to face him. Black sclera, golden irises, a piercing violet eye staring right through Lance’s trembling bones in the center of his forehead. The pupil dilates, the bushes and the trees caging them in quaking with the fear that Lance can feel rippling through him like many angry waves._

_“K-Keith, w-what_ _—_ _”_

_“Why would you say that, Lance?” Keith asks, accusation hot in his voice, despite the tears rolling down his cheeks, “Why would you call me that?”_

_Lance doesn’t know what to say. He runs through various insults in his head, wondering which one Keith could be referring to. He’s called him a lot of things since they’d met. He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t understand why the animosity fell away, but the constant disparaging comments never quite lost their luster._

_Maybe it’s fun, he thinks. He thought that Keith knew that. He thought that he enjoyed the banter just as much._

_“Keith, I_ _—_ _”_

 _“I’m not a mango, Lance. I’m a person. I’m not a fruit. It doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t_ _—_ _”_

  


Lance awakens in a cold sweat, gripping his blankets so hard that his knuckles pale and tremble.

A sense of terror falls over him, freezing him right down to his core, and despite how idiotic he eventually realizes that his dream really was, a feeling of foreboding won’t quite leave him.

It takes him a moment to realize that he’s back on the ship. He doesn’t remember waking up, or prying himself out of Keith’s arms. He only remembers feeling that warmth, smelling all of Keith’s smells, telling himself that everything could finally get better between them before slipping off into unconsciousness.

It’s dark outside, but he can see light pouring into his room from the crack under the door. He can hear people talking and laughing some ways away, and he wonders how long he’s been out. He imagines that back home, his mom might be starting the coffee pot. She might be tiptoeing toward his younger siblings’ rooms, cracking open their doors, telling them to get up and brush their teeth before school.

Shaking his head, he pulls himself out of bed, pausing in confusion as cold air envelops his bare skin.

Why the Hell is he naked?

In the grand scheme of things, considering that he fell asleep with Keith naked on the beach, it makes sense, but he definitely doesn’t remember wandering back to the ship, and he _absolutely_ does not remember doing so in the nude.

Shame heats his cheeks. He scurries about the room, grabbing his clothes from the floor in such a frenzy that he doesn’t even notice that his shirt is inside out and backwards. The tag hangs down from his neck, flapping idly as he shrugs into his jacket and crinkles his nose as he finally notices how stiff and greasy his hair is.

It’s standing in all directions. He smells like he’s been bathing in mud. His skin feels cracked and oily, and there’s nothing more that he wants right now than to make his way straight to the showers.

However, when he steps out into the hall, something from the dining room smells so delicious that he can’t help but change his plans.

Food first, then a shower.

The lights overhead are glaring and overwhelming, and he rubs a finger over his temple as a headache threatens to split open his skull. He wonders if Keith is suffering too. He wonders if he still managed to wake up early to train when he’s surely dealing with a worse hangover than anyone else.

As he draws nearer to the dining area, the voices grow clearer. He can decipher Pidge making some kind of joke about Allura and Shiro, as Hunk snickers and Shiro sputters a response. Coran is lectoring her about respecting the Princess, but Allura doesn’t sound like she minds at all. She’s laughing too, and as Lance rounds the corner and steps through the threshold of the door, he can see her puffing out her chest and squaring her shoulders as she does a pretty decent Shiro impression.

“ _Princess, I don’t think that’s a good idea_ _—_ o-oh, Lance! You’re awake!”

Everyone turns to look at him then—Pidge grinning from ear to ear as she fiddles with some contraption that looks as though it’s a super high-tech radio from a science fiction movie, Hunk reaching forward to spoon more goo onto his plate, Coran with his arms crossed, leaning against the wall, Allura, wilting in her Shiro-stance, and Shiro himself, a flush darker against his cheeks than Lance has ever seen on him before.

Keith is the only one who doesn’t register that he’s entered the room. He’s slouched against the table, cheek planted firmly in his own breakfast. Lance can’t help the laughter that bubbles inside of him at the sight of it—the mere idea of someone as strong and stubborn as Keith actually folding under the pain and discomfort of a hangover. It’s humanizing, he thinks. If he didn’t know any better, he might fool himself into thinking that Keith were just like any other, normal person.

As Lance takes his seat, Hunk stands up and passes him a plate, already loaded with a pile of food goo that smells better than anything that he thinks he’s eaten since the beginning of this mission.

Keith raises his head just a little, pressing his fingers hard into his temples and sparing Lance a weak smile. It’s enough to send butterflies fluttering deep in the pits of Lance’s belly, that he immediately blames on the alcohol. Keith’s stupid little smile alone couldn’t possibly be responsible. Not even after everything that happened last night.

“So did you finally get enough beauty sleep?” Pidge asks, a sly smile turning up the corners of her lips, “Doesn’t really look like it. I think you need to go back to bed.”

Lance turns to send her a glare, mouth full of food goo. Hunk laughs.

“Dude, seriously, you slept for like… forty-eight hours or something. We thought you died.”

Forty-eight hours—how would he even know? Has he been keeping a watch on him all this time in space? Lance swallows hard, setting down his spoon so roughly that Keith flinches.

“Well, sorry that I actually know how to party,” he sneers, not entirely sure why any of this is getting him so worked up, “And it’s not like Keith’s in better condition!”

Pidge snorts, setting down her screwdriver and the little radio and leaning forward, resting her chin against her hands. Her glasses glint in the light, obscuring her eyes and the fading outlines of those stupid, half-smudged eyebrows that the Komians had drawn on for her.

“Of course he’s not,” she says, “Whatever you did to him the other night really screwed him up, dude. You know he didn’t even train this morning? Do you think…. he might be a little sore?”

He doesn’t like these implications at all, but everyone is staring at him now, knowingly. Shiro flushes a little darker, clearing his throat and looking away.

“Pidge,” he says softly, “That’s enough.”

It’s not enough though, apparently, because she keeps going. Even Keith raises his head to watch as the conversation unfolds, and Lance feels his skin crawl at the thought alone of revealing everything before the two of them have a chance to talk.

Whatever the Hell that was, he doesn’t want to screw it up. Keith kissed him. He told him that he’d—he’d always… always chase after him.

_He called him beautiful!_

He thinks about going back to the way that things were before—to fighting, to belittling one another at every turn. It feels wrong now. It feels as though they’ve ventured into a new part of their relationship, one more vulnerable, one…

One that he’s not willing to ruin just yet.

Keith is staring at him, eyes hot against his skin. A single brow is raised, cheeks dusted pink, his bottom lip trapped between his teeth as though he’s sitting on the edge of his seat, waiting to hear Lance’s rebuttal.

“You guys wandered off for a really long time,” Pidge continues, “Don’t tell me you just decided to _go for a swim_.”

Now that he thinks about it, minus the kissing and the serenading—which still hasn’t stopped embarrassing the Hell out of him—that really is all that they did. He realizes that she won’t believe him no matter what he says now, that even if he swears up and down that their fun was completely “T-rated”, the seed of doubt has already been planted in everyone’s thoughts.

He spares another look at Keith, struggling to swallow the growing lump in his throat as Keith sends him another smile—more pitying this time, as though he’s silently apologizing for allowing him to be so put on the spot.  Lance decides that there’s only one thing that he can do.

He’ll deny it. He’ll deny everything, just so he won’t have to get Keith involved in this.

“Nothing even happened,” he barks, just a little too loud, voice cracking, “I—I don’t even remember, okay? We just wandered off and passed out! That’s all that I remember!”

He doesn’t even realize that he’s standing until he’s looking down at Keith, who, for whatever reason, is glaring into his ruined breakfast. Little pieces of goo cling to his hair and cheeks, contrasted against the hot red of his flush. Lance doesn’t understand any of this.

Pidge is laughing again. Hunk looks troubled. Shiro, for some reason, appears as though he’s trying to melt into the tiles of the floor.

“Sounds like you really don’t know how to party then, Lance.”

Pidge’s smile only broadens as she speaks.

Before Lance can argue, Keith stands abruptly, his chair scraping noisily against the floor. He grabs it forcefully, ramming it so hard underneath the table that everyone’s plates rattle. Shiro makes a noise as though he’s intending to tell Keith to be gentle, but the words die on his lips as Keith begins to storm away. Everyone watches silently, waiting for something, maybe, as Keith stomps toward the exit, stopping as the door hisses open and throwing a glare over his shoulder in Lance’s direction—not quite meeting Lance’s eyes.

“Sorry,” he snarls, “I guess I’m just a little too _sore_ from the other night. I’m going back to bed.”

If he could slam the automatic doors, Lance imagines that he would. Nonetheless, as it hisses closed, Lance still flinches, feeling the tendrils of his anger lingering momentarily like smoke in the room behind him.

Maybe that wasn’t the right decision after all. Maybe he should go after Keith and make things right.

He apologizes hurriedly, placing his chair gently back in place and scurrying towards the door. Just as he’s stepping out in the hall, Pidge’s little radio comes to life, playing what sounds like a rough techno remix of some sort.

He can’t really make out the words, but it sounds like someone slurring, _“I-I’m beautiful?!”_

He’ll have to look into that more later.

For now, he needs to find Keith.

He paces around in the hall for a moment, contemplating whether Keith could have actually went to his room, or if he decided to go to the training deck to blow off some steam instead. Maybe he went to take a shower, but Lance immediately decides against it, reminding himself that once all of this is said and done, he’s going to have to have a long talk with him about personal hygiene and bathing at least semi-regularly.

With a grimace, he decides to check Keith’s bedroom first. It’s the least assuming of the two, and honestly, talking this out with Keith while he’s holding a weapon sounds like the last thing that he should do if he wants to survive long enough to see his family again.

As he’s walking, he thinks about everything that happened back on Komium. He tries to put together the pieces of how they came to this moment in time. He remembers Keith nuzzling his neck, calling him beautiful. He remembers Keith pressing their lips together, their hot, naked skin slick in the lake water as Keith’s eager hands had mapped out every piece of his skin.

He remembers listening as Keith sang to him, as he’d poured out far more emotion in one sentence than Lance has ever seen him express since they’d first met, so many months ago. He wonders if he should have comforted him. He wonders if he’ll ever be capable of being the sort of person who Keith deserves.

 

As he makes his way down the hall toward their rooms, he finally spots Keith.

Keith is just reaching his door when Lance half-jogs toward him, breathless and riddled with nerves. Keith doesn’t seem to have stopped glaring the entire way here, his features only darkening when he turns and spots Lance just a little ways away.

“Oh, you remembered where my room was.”

Lance stops, leaning forward and placing a hand on each knee, gasping to catch his breath.

“O-okay, yeah, I deserved that,” he says, wondering if the alcohol can be blamed for how out of shape he feels, or if he really should be joining Keith in the training deck more often, “Listen, okay, I-I didn’t mean it… I—I just didn’t… I didn’t want everyone knowing what happened, you know? I… I didn’t want to tell everyone until we talked about it.”

Keith furrows his brows, clenching and unclenching his fists as his door slides open and he places one foot inside of his room.

“It doesn’t matter,” Keith tells him, voice strained, eyes hard as he peers into the shadows of his room, “Because I don’t remember either, okay? So I guess we’re even.”

Lance freezes, suddenly feeling as though any of the air that he’d just swallowed has been knocked right out of his lungs. His skin feels cold, veins expanding and pulsing with the rush of blood pumping from his swiftly-beating heart. This isn’t right. Keith has to remember. He can’t have possibly forgotten everything that he said. Everything that they did. All of the confessions, the sweet words, the kisses between them that would change their relationship from here on out.

“K-Keith—”

“I remember talking to Bex,” Keith interrupts, knuckles white as he grasps the edge of the doorway, “But everything else is a blur. So don’t worry about telling anyone anything. I don’t remember it.”

Lance moves robotically, easing forward, hoping that if he presses a hand against Keith’s shoulder, maybe the memories will come rushing back. Keith flinches away, turning those burning eyes right on him, singing him to the core.

“I guess you could say,” Keith draws out, words venomous, “If we don’t remember, it didn’t happen, right?”

With that, he steps fully into his room. Lance considers going after him, shaking him until he remembers everything, kissing him so hard that none of this matters, but—

His feet are rooted to the ground.

His thoughts swirl with memories as he stares blankly at Keith’s closed door, with blurry images and staticky sensations of lips against his lips, of hands tangled in his hair. He thinks about Keith wrapped around him like a security blanket. He thinks about that song playing far-off in the distance, the vulnerable softness smoothing out all of Keith’s jagged corners.

He thinks about falling asleep together, feeling safe.

About Keith’s final words before he closed his eyes.

 

_“Even if you hate me… I think… I’d still chase you.”_

 

A long time passes before Lance’s legs come to life again. And finally, once he catches his breath, once the ship stops spinning wildly around him, he turns on his heel and goes back to his room.

He doesn’t finish his breakfast. He doesn’t take a shower.

He just goes back to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man, whoo boy, what a chapter!
> 
> So this was a little rough, and I'm so sorry! I promise that we're not making everyone suffer for nothing, but... ah, for now, this chapter leaves off on kind of a sad note. Please forgive me! I promise that there are many happy times to come! 
> 
> Lemon and I had to discuss which song Keith would sing to Lance for quite some time! In the end, since Lemon's recently become obsessed with Black Mirror, we decided on ['Anyone Who Knows What Love Is' by Irma Thomas](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_K9xsSdgMs). It's a really beautiful song, and sadly... I think it sums up Lance and Keith's relationship in this story so far really well... oh man. 
> 
> Anyway, a special shout-out to ao3 user [DracoSH](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DracoSH/pseuds/DracoSH) for [translating this story into French](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8406895?view_adult=true)! And another special shout-out to tumblr user [adriabun](http://adriabun.tumblr.com/) for [drawing a wonderful rendition the "you're beautiful" scene from chapter 10](http://adriabun.tumblr.com/post/152606374769/sokay-cause-i-think-youre-beautiful)!
> 
> So please check them out and send them tons of love! As always, thank you to everyone for reading so far! See you guys next week!


	12. Spatial Awareness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nice try, pervy Altean almost-but-not-quite-entirely-unlike Keith, but _no dice_!

“God, Blue,” Lance groans, knocking his head back hard against the panel of the giant metal paw behind him, “Why am I such an idiot?”

 

Blue purrs gently at him, but the thought she feeds more or less gives him the feeling she’s about to compile a list as an answer. Lance groans again, snapping his head forward to hide his face in his hands.

 

“Aw, come on, I thought we were friends! We’re bonded and stuff, my main blue bro,” Lance laments, and he’s sure Blue does an equivalent of a physical shrug into his mind. “You’re supposed to be like, I don’t know, the supportive mom here? Or at least the mom friend!”

 

Blue doesn’t respond, only flicks her crooked, robotic tail back and forth lazily. Lance’s fingers tangle in frustration in his hair, pulling on the strands as if that might help his situation at all.

 

“We’ve been over this before, what I asked is what we call back on Earth a _rhetorical_ question.” Lance continues gesturing with his hands wildly as he speaks, trying in vain to explain things to an ancient being who could probably care less about what anything means anywhere. “That means you’re not _actually_ supposed to answer it, and you know, it wouldn’t kill you to not agree for once either!”

 

Blue sends some vibrations against his back, warm but firm, and he sighs.

 

“Okay, yeah, I know, I know. Point taken. I was a real jerkass to Keith. But honestly, I didn’t mean to be for once! Can’t you give me some sort of alien warship advice here or something? You’re over _10,000 years old_ , come on! I’m only 19, and I’m confused, and I don’t know how to deal with stuff like this. Help me out a little!”

 

Lance doesn’t know why he ended up here, of all places, out of the five other real, live people he could potentially go to for advice on how to deal with a cute, moody boy whom he has probably ruined any chance of being with before he got to explore what their relationship could potentially even be.

 

Maybe he thought talking to an inert metal face would be easier than avoiding eye contact with the disapproving ones of his teammates, but as it stands, Blue is being about as stern and unsympathetic. In fact, it’s probably only worse as the connection they share is strong enough that she can use his own thoughts against him as examples to further her points, which he’s starting to realize now is a real bummer.

 

He knew he should have gone to Hunk. At least then, he would have gotten a nice hug and some comfort food.

 

“I don’t know what to do,” Lance whines despondently against his palms, only thinking about the way Keith did the same once, with his small frame shrouded in the lake.

 

It seems so long ago already, like a far off dream that may not have even happened. His stomach drops, there’s an odd pain that’s weighing down his chest, as if something heavy is sitting on top of him and constricting his breathing.

 

“...I don’t want him to be mad at me, but if he is, I understand,” Lance continues, barely above a whisper and dropping his hands, letting his fingers fiddle with the hem of his jacket, eyes downcast. “I’ll...I’ll stay out of his way if that’s what he really wants. But what _I_ really want is for him to not be mad at all. I just want him to be happy, Blue. Do you...do you think that’s selfish of me?”

 

Blue is silent, apparently too busy working on imitating a statue.

 

Lance pushes his lip out into a pout, trying to hold back his tears from how stressful it is dealing with all these creeping, unfamiliar emotions that leave him feeling like he’s being hollowed-out from the inside. He stares at the grooves of his palms, reflecting on how mystics could supposedly find answers within them, but there’s nothing but a jumble of crisscrossing, mismatched path of lines to him.

 

There are no answers there that can be uncovered so easily, he thinks, shoulders slumping forward unhappily.

 

He didn’t ask to have a thing for Keith, he didn’t ask to be on the receiving end of Keith having some sort of undefined thing for him too, and he surely never meant to hurt him over any of this mess.

 

Unfortunately, the harsh reality of the situation is that he _did_ hurt Keith, has hurt Keith, and it hardly matters if it was intentional or not, because it happened. But it hurts him too, more than anything he’s felt - worse than his homesickness at some level, or maybe at least in a different way.

 

Whether Keith remembered what he did and said back on Komium or not, it’s clear he’s angry about his denial that there’s nothing going on between them when there so obviously is, and Lance gets the feeling he royally fucked up much more than usual.

 

Blue finally responds with something that grabs his attention, purr trilling higher, and flashes a familiar image that seems to scroll directly behind his eyelids. Lance lifts his head at that.

 

“Huh?” He sniffs, rubbing at the tears pin-pricking the edges of his eyes and threatening to spill out. He really needs to pull himself together, this is pathetic. “What...what does Red have to do with this?”

 

Cupping a hand to his chin, Lance considers what she means. The general gist of what he can understand is that she’s suggesting he goes to Red for help instead, which is just absurd, honestly. Red _isn’t_ his lion, and she most definitely won’t be any help to him because she’d be on Keith’s side. Knowing how protective Blue can get sometimes, he isn’t sure he’d want to open himself to any possible attacks from Red, the most emotionally volatile of them all. He also doubts that they can communicate in the same manner. As far as he can tell, he’s only been able to understand when Blue ‘talks’ to him.

 

Blue rumbles, a deep, comforting low pitch that Lance can feel reverberating in his chest, and it makes him feel a little better, a little less hollow. Then she’s lifting her paw to shake Lance forward, as if telling him she’s more than done with the conversation and trying to somehow push him in the direction of Keith’s hangar.

 

“Whoah, okay, so I know I asked for your advice and all, but are you crazy? Red’s a little unhinged, and she’s _Keith’s lion_. That doesn’t make any sense, and also, I might get murdered!”

 

Lance digs his heels into the floor in a faint protest, gripping onto her paw tighter, but Blue roars loud enough that he lets go in surprise. She takes the moment of weakness to try and toss him off completely by lifting her paw several feet off the ground, but he manages to get his wits about him fast enough to cling back on like a kitten pleading with its mother to not make them go out for their first hunt.

 

“I’m--I am _not_ being a scaredy-cat!” Lance pleads as he hangs precariously from the nooks of her claws, fingers slipping fast on the smooth surface, “I just value my life. I’m not made of metal like you, this isn’t fair! H-hey! Dammit, not this again!”

 

True to the nature of a large, motherly cat, Blue ignores his cries and carefully snags him by his hood between the clamps of her dauntingly wide jaw. Lance lets himself go limp, knowing that fighting it is completely futile and he’s clearly lost whatever this argument even was. Blue won’t hurt him anyway, though he is still slightly unsettled being between the teeth of a gigantic, basically sentient mechanical lion.

 

It isn’t the first time she’s done this to him, however, so Lance rolls with it, too emotionally drained to bother caring anymore. He wonders, legs dangling as she whisks him so quickly across the room his head spins, if there’s a way he can get Pidge to make a huge laser to distract her better in the future, or maybe some high-grade space lion catnip.

 

He’ll have to ask Allura about the logistics of that possibility later.

 

Blue drops him off at the entrance to his hangar, beaming knowledge of a nearby tunnel he wasn’t even aware existed on the ship. Brushing himself off and re adjusting his coat, Lance watches in awe as a panel of the wall glitches out and disappears. He draws in a breath, staring at the corridor that suddenly stretches out in front of him, dim except for a few faint blue lights embedded in the walls. It’s designed a lot like the rest of the ship in that manner - though the similarities end there.

 

Putting a hand against part of the grungy rock-like material lining the inside, it’s cool to the touch, and the atmosphere feels foreboding and different than most of the main hallways. There are strange markings on the walls, pictures and letters of a language Lance can’t decipher.

It’s dusty and has more the feel of a catacomb rather than that of an ultra-modernized spaceship, looking severely out of place and like it hasn’t been touched in...well, probably since the last paladins of voltron were in the very position he is now.

 

“Wow…” Lance gasps, poking his head inside, squinting to try and see where the end leads to. “I didn’t know there were secret shortcuts in these things. That’s pretty cool, girl. Where does it go, though?”

 

He frowns as Blue mysteriously denies that that’s not exactly the case, but doesn’t elaborate on whatever that might mean. Before he can ask her to explain, she’s coaxing him forcibly with her nose into the winding, darkened hallway.

 

“Alright, alright, yeesh! I get it, I’m going, I’m going. Don’t get your tail in a tizzy, I’ll just go down this mysterious creepy hallway for no real reason if it makes you happy, okay?”

 

Pushing down the small tremors running through him, Lance is eerily reminded of the time that the ship went haywire and almost threw him out into space, which definitely is making each step more difficult. As he tentatively creeps forwards, the encouraging roar of Blue in the background soothing some of his panic as she reassures him that it’s safe and she’ll be watching, he’s pretty sure he’ll never get used to the magical, haunted feel of alien technology.

 

The only thing missing to the picture, Lance thinks, willing his shaking legs to push forward, are proper stalactites dripping water on the ground, or maybe some bats flying rapidly out at him. There’s an absence of any musty smell too - it’s all so modernly concocted and surreal, like whoever designed it put great care into making as much detail as possible without adding the realism. He almost wishes there were torches lining the rocks, so at least a flickering flame could add a more genuine aesthetic to it.

 

While he strides down the hall, the blue lights do at least flicker on and off weirdly behind and in front of him. Picking up speed to try and get this over with faster, he hums an idle tune to ease the tension, watching as the ones behind go out right as new ones come to life in front of him. The tunnel seems to wind forever in only one direction, but Lance is sure it hasn’t been all that long since he started walking down it. A few minutes maybe, and he can still feel Blue’s presence like a dim blue glimmer in the distance in his mind, just as she promised.

 

Right as he’s about to say fuck it and head back in the direction he came from because it appears that Blue is bent on wasting his time by making him exercise a lot instead of solving his boy problems, the lights begin to change. Gradually, the blue fades, growing darker and deeper in hue. Curiously, he watches it mix under his feet, blanches when it drains of its brightness completely. At one point, playing through the dimness and the strange reflections of plastic rock wall, his heart skips a beat when it appears to swirl into a prominent, glittering purple. Although, that disappears too quickly for him to dwell on much, and it’s not bright enough to really remind him of the Galra.

 

Lance backs up, startled, when a stark, full blood red blips to life right beneath his feet and off to his side, bathing the tunnel in something that looks like it could be even moreso out of a horror movie.

 

“Alright, Blue, you’ve had your fun,” Lance laughs nervously, feeling his hair prickle at the back of his neck, “That’s enough, let me out of this weird thing!”

 

He can’t feel her anymore, all too aware of how utterly alone and secluded he is. He pinches his arm to make sure this isn’t another one of his weird dreams, though he imagines the lack of any sexual component to it is confirmation enough in itself that this is very real.

 

Breaking out into more of a brisk jog, Lance tries to steady his breathing, spirals of red beams dragging disorientingly all around him. He really wishes he could see the end of this damn thing, wherever that may be. His pulse is skyrocketing, cold sweat coating his arms, senses on high alert, because something doesn’t seem entirely right about this, but---

 

“Stupid!”

 

Lance stops abruptly at what he’s sure were words - _human, spoken words_ \- breath huffing out hard as he draws closer to what seems to be the source of the pulsing, brightest red light engulfing the tunnel in front of him. Now that there aren’t his own echoing footsteps, he can tell that there are other sounds besides the voice, some sort of clanging, as if an object is being run into repeatedly.

 

“Stupid Lance, stupid me, stupid space, stupid everyone! Ugh!”

 

Lance frowns, stomach doing tiny somersaults at the owner of the voice, which is booming loud and clear through the hall. Damn Blue to the worst layer of space lion hell, because, of course the tunnel would lead him _here,_ the one place where he doesn’t want to be.

 

He contemplates retreating, but there’s something--something pained in the way Keith sounds, something melancholic and too heart-wrenching in it, not unlike the way he sounded on the shore of the lake as he talked about his mother singing, as _he_ sang to _him_.

 

_“I think it reminds me of you. Of… of me and you.”_

 

And he can’t leave.

 

No, Lance shakes his head. Not that he _can’t_.

 

He _won’t_. Not this time. Blue wanted him to see this for a reason, and maybe Red is on this too. He probably shouldn’t interfere for Keith’s sake, but there’s something in his gut telling him that this is important - and even if Blue is still interfering with his mind to help encourage that, it doesn’t matter.

 

If he watches whatever’s going on, maybe he can better understand what’s happening here with Keith, better understand where he’s coming from.

 

Lance’s legs drag him closer, so that he’s slipping through the glaring shield of red, almost like he’s becoming a part of it, a trick of the light being absorbed directly into his skin. It fades enough that he can see familiar artificial light, and he sighs as his eyes adjust back to normal fluorescence. The tunnel has indeed magically bypassed Keith’s hangar and led him straight to where Red sits dead center of the room. Lance has never seen any of the other paladin’s lions in their rooms before, but there isn’t anything remarkably different about them, and that’s not exactly what his focus lands on.

 

“Dumb, so fucking dumb!” Keith grunts, jabbing with his bare fists against a forcefield Red has up around her. His hair is wild, caught half up and half down between a messy ponytail - _the_ messy ponytail Lance reminds himself he’s so weak for, for whatever reason.

 

He’s in his regular black t-shirt and pants, minus that awful fanny pack thing around his waist, minus the knife he usually carries with him, fists tight and knuckles an inflamed red that blends seamlessly with the light of the forcefield.

 

“I’m an _idiot_ . ‘ _Anyone who knows what love is_ ’? Fucking stupid. Why did I do that? Why would I think he would ever, _ever_ find that impressive?”

 

Combining his punches with a series of kicks, Keith frantically goes back and forth between a mixture of both. It’s some brand of advanced kickboxing movements, Lance recognizes with a start - the ones Keith had been teaching him before all this bullshit went down.

 

Lance can tell he’s over exerting himself by the way sweat pours off his face, his shirt already stained with dark splotches of it. He can tell by the force Keith puts behind each movement, even though the forcefield naturally doesn’t budge. He’d been showing Lance, telling him once not long ago, about channeling your energy and power to flow through your kicks and punches to carry the intensity of it, to really land a mark. Lance can see that energy clearly around him now, as if it’s almost a tangible thing that hangs as heavy as this terrible tension in the air.

 

Lance can’t move, crouched at the secret exit just out of sight, and he can barely remember to breathe. The intensity of it all sinks daggers into his ribcage, shoots ice through his veins.

 

Red continues whipping her tail as if bored, blank gaze directed towards the wall away from Keith, as if she’s sat through this routine nearly hundreds of times, as if she’s trained herself to be politely respectful of it all.

 

Lance gulps as he imagines it, mouth much too dry as he pictures a furiously wild and upset Keith taking out frustrations too deep and complex to be accidentally walked in on in the training room, too intimate for anyone on the team to know about. How often does he come here to do this? What’s the cause of it usually when it’s not him? Lance claps his hand over his mouth to keep from calling out, to keep from possibly ruining this further by rushing over and gathering Keith in his arms, from smoothing back his hair like his fingers always itch to do and holding him tight until he calms within the heat of his embrace.

 

He gets it. This is Keith’s safe place, and he doesn’t belong here.

 

Keith truly must trust Red, and Lance feels bad spying on this private moment of inner anguish when surely Keith can’t trust him in nearly the same way.

 

“It’s all so fucking stupid, stupid, because no one knows a goddamn thing about what love is!” Keith screams into the high ceiling, screams at Red, screams at nothing, everything, and probably at Lance if he knew he was there.

 

Front kick, side kick, left, right hook. Punch punch, jab jab.

 

His technique becomes sloppier, his punches landing dangerously incorrect, ambivalence showing clearly in his pained, glassy eyes.

 

“ _No one_ fucking does!”

 

Lance flinches when Keith does the routine over and over for an indiscernible amount of time, until his knuckles begin to crack, until fresh blood is welling up and running in rivulets towards his wrists.

 

“No one understands,” he repeats to Red less loudly, voice raw and crackling and lost. “No one does, okay? And _especially_ not me.”

 

Keith lands one final front kick that sticks him in place, like a bitter fly caught in the web of its unconventional spider friend who’s telling them as kindly as they can to chill the fuck out. Struggling against it, Keith bangs his fists on the forcefield, tries to pry his leg from it as it surges over his knee, sucking the rest of it through so he can’t remove it. When he throws more punches in frustration, those stick too, until he’s standing almost completely immobilized, wriggling with one leg and both arms caught, trapped in the universe’s weirdest stock.

 

“Cause why…” Keith flexes out one bruised and battered hand towards Red, angrily snorting a puff of air to move his bangs away from his eyes, and she nudges her paw against it. “I mean, _how_ would _I_ , of all people know, right?”

 

It takes Lance a moment to realize that Red is rising, so focused on the weary figure of Keith, small and raging, that he’s completely forgotten the giant creature unfolding itself from its lounging and sitting up, stretching its long limbs. It looks like she’s staring at Keith, probably telling him something.

 

“Let me go, Red,” Keith insists in response, exhaustion tugging around every strained syllable. “I’m not...I’m not finished...”

 

His voice is so soft and fragile now in the fading remnants of his anger, and it hurts, hurts enough that Lance feels his breath coming out unevenly like Keith’s is at that moment, hurts enough that Lance finds his fingernails digging into his thighs while he fights the urge to intrude upon this, to break whatever the hell this fucked up self-destructive cycle of Keith’s is.

 

“It wasn’t long enough, fuck, it’s never long enough. You’re such a cheapskate.”

 

Keith’s protest is weak, like he doesn’t honestly care that much anymore, energy fading away quick as Red keeps him contained in her bubble. He even chuckles fondly over the word ‘cheapskate’. Arching his back, he pulls away as far as he can go to stare her down. His glare is as brittle and fake as his words, like it’s only there for stubborn decoration, like it’s a layer of ice on a lake that you can’t tell is thin until you stand on its cracking surface.

 

There’s an extended pause, only the sharp rasps of Keith trying to catch his breath filling the silence. His hair is almost completely back down again, soaked bangs plastered to his face so that his expression is more obscured. Lance is thankful for that noise at least, not sure he can keep his own breathing under control, feeling so affected that it’s almost like he was right there with Keith, pounding away at a forcefield trying to remove all the deep-seated tendrils of conflicting emotions, combating as one to erase all the worst parts of themselves.

 

“Ugh, whatever.”

 

Red tilts her head, lets out a low rumble of a roar. Keith begrudgingly nods, and she releases him. Falling back instantly, he hits the ground roughly at the quick movement, but only lets himself lie there with his knees drawn up and splayed wide, elbows poised on them, brushing back the hair tangling between his lips. Lance wishes he would at least attempt to clean his knuckles up a bit, immensely bothered by their swollen, blood-smeared appearance.

 

“Do you,” Keith says after a moment, tone more even and normal, like he didn’t just spend the last twenty minutes or more working himself into a rageful, bloodlust-esque frenzy, “Do you really think Lance understands?”

 

Lance’s heart catches in his throat when Red’s unseeing eyes seem to nod towards him, and he sinks further into the shadows. He knows she knows he’s there - clearly Blue and her have been talking. Speaking of which, he’s going to give Blue a stern lecture later, because what the fuck. How was seeing this supposed to do anything but make him feel worse and more powerless than ever in helping Keith?

 

He glares at his palms again. No easy answers, he supposes.

 

“Well, that makes sense,” Keith sighs as another pause stretches out between them, and Red’s gaze is back on him. “Because he’s had it before.”

 

More silence, and then Keith is laughing in a way that lands a final blow to Lance’s chest. It’s not his usual laugh, the laugh Lance thinks he may have fallen in love with. It’s a laugh that sounds like one lonely drop of water down an abandoned well - hollow, empty, and unnervingly loud.

 

“Doesn’t count, really, Red, but nice try. It was such a short time,” Keith says bluntly, finally inspecting his knuckles and wiping them carefully off on his shirt, and Lance surely doesn’t miss the way he winces when he does. “I don’t understand, I think. Not enough to remember.”

 

Lance rewinds, replays what just happened, recalls the night they laid out on the toga, pressed close and bare and open with each other. He fast-forwards to Keith’s current words, trying to figure out the meaning behind what he’s saying now.

 

“Don’t get me wrong, I want to understand. But I’m a fool for thinking Lance could teach me.” Keith shakes his head while untangling the rubber band from what’s left of his practically non-existent ponytail, squinting as it snags on a matted tuft of hair. “Besides, it isn’t really like that, is it?”

 

Lance’s head buzzes with electricity - there’s something about the way Keith says his name that always gets him, fills him up with smoke inside, like the aftereffect of an out-of-control fire that scorches all his internal organs. Teach him to understand what, exactly? As much as he’d like to deny it, there’s really nothing he’s particularly skilled in that Keith probably doesn’t already know.

 

Keith seems to be talking in riddles, but Lance gets the faint inkling there’s a connection, a connection with what he said earlier and then this, obviously, because Keith is a guy who is logical and isn’t one for non-sequiturs.

 

Then, even more quietly, Keith says something that has Lance’s blood surging all the more faster.

 

“It’s just _l-lust_...right?”

 

Keith’s words are unsure, sounding hopeful, or hopeless, Lance can’t quite tell which. The way he says ‘lust’ in a hushed whisper, in that adorably innocent stutter, has Lance clapping that palm right back over his mouth. The only hint of anything else to what Keith says is the telling color that sinks into his cheeks, highlighted by Red’s glow, and then he’s quickly flitting his eyes downward, fishing out his gloves from his pockets and pulling them on to avoid the awkwardness of it all.

 

Lance takes this brief reprieve where Red is saying god knows what to reassess the facts.

 

His name being mentioned. Keith doesn’t understand something, and he needs Lance to teach him - maybe? But lust? Lance wasn’t expecting that particular word to ever cross Keith’s lips, wasn’t expecting it to be seemingly linked to their conversation about _him_. It sounds infinitely dirtier than usual, Keith saying something so uncharacteristic as ‘lust’, even though it’s definitely more proper than how he’d describe his feelings for Keith. Lance reminds his addled brain, the  attentive bulge in his pants, not to get too ahead of himself.

 

The subject is ambiguous, unclear _whose_ lust is being talked about.

 

The two options Lance’s brain jumps to have his head spinning regardless - either Keith knows about his impure thoughts, or Keith may have secrets of his own.

 

Lance’s skin burns with sensation, he pinches his arm again. Nope, still awake, so it’s probably not the latter. Keith is smart, he probably picked up on it back in the lake, when things were heated in the water and Lance _may have_ gotten more excited than he’d care to admit, despite not acting on anything.

 

With everything in him screaming for him to stay and eavesdrop on whatever scandalous path this may be going to, Lance decides that maybe this is enough. He feels drained, like he needs to go recharge somewhere and be in a quiet place to reflect and figure this all out. He can also feel the tug, the relaxing pull of Blue in the distance, and he has quite a few choice words for her anyway.

 

This can wait, Keith deserves actual privacy again, he reiterates to himself, bones and curiosity protesting tenfold as he forces his body back to the depths of the tunnel.

 

It’s fine, it’s definitely fine. He has more than enough time in the world to get creative later if need be.

 

Honestly, the less he knows, the better.

 

* * *

 

  


Shiro is strolling past the wing where most of the others’ rooms lie when he hears it - some distorted, techno sounding music filtering through the hall. If he didn’t have such a headache from spending most of the other day listening to awful Komian music, he may have simply continued past, not wanting to bother investigating it.

 

_N-Never not lost an arm, listen to your--pfft---fellow paladin!_

 

But he stops in his tracks at the remixed sound of his and Allura’s voices crashing over the hurried tempo of the melody, finds he can’t walk away that easily. Turning into Pidge’s room on a whim of a guess, he almost walks right back out at the sight.

  


_I-I’m beautiful?!_

 

_Yeah, you’re beautiful, dude_

 

_Y-you really think I’m b-beautiful?_

 

_So, so beautiful, dude_

  


Pidge and Hunk are swinging around in various states of dance as some strange looking radio that Pidge had been tinkering with earlier blasts the gitchy melody, Lance’s and Keith’s pre-recorded voices stuttering over manufactured record scratches and beats dropping up and down. Shiro stares, neither of them stopping or seeming to notice him standing there. He’s not sure what to do in this instant, or if there’s any point in doing anything anymore.

  


_The fuck is Christmas, bruh?_

 

_Never ever, never ever ever celebrated Christmas_

 

_Keith, Christmas is s-so gay, that’s pretty gay_

 

_Gay, gay Christmas, I’m dreaming of a gay, gay Christmas_

  


The lyrics continue, words and voices being spliced and mixed together at certain parts, because Shiro’s sure that despite not being around them the whole time on Komian, that half of these things were not said in this particular order.

  


_Lance thinks Keith is cute, cu-cu-cute_

 

_Cute 80’s hairstyle, I like Keith’s cute 80’s hair_

 

_Pretty, pretty Lance, ba-ba-beautiful Lance_

 

_Get your ass out-out-out of the mud_

 

_Or else, no gay!_

  


Hunk starts doing the robot, Pidge joins in with some disjointed pop-and-lock movements of her own. Shiro questions what his life has become.

  


_Just look at him, cute, cute Keith_

 

_Isn’t he cute, Lance?_

 

_Yeah, are-aren’t I cute?_

 

_I guess Keith is cute, and I like cute 80’s 80’s 80’s hair_

 

_You’re beautiful dude, so beautiful dude_

 

_So like, we’re even_

  


Despite the fact he probably shouldn’t be encouraging this, Shiro stifles a laugh, because it sounds so seamlessly real and accurate, that he’s not entirely sure if Pidge actually edited it anymore. He prays that neither Lance nor Keith walks in curiously like he did, wonders if it’s a bad thing his foot has started tapping to the rhythm as well. Hunk is twirling Pidge around in a wide circle as the beat dips, stutters and starts back up.

  


_Gonna go sha-sha-show beautiful Lance a good, good time_

 

_G-g-gonna give it to him good_

 

_Slap his ass, sla-slap his ass out of the mud_

 

_Let’s blow, blow, blow this joint_

 

_Gonna blow beautiful Lance_

  


Okay, no, he’s positive that Keith didn’t say it like that.

 

...Well, in any case, Shiro hopes that if he did, it at least wouldn’t be around them all. Ugh.

  


_Go go go for it, sounds pretty gay_

 

_Gay, gay Christmas, I’m dreaming of a gay, gay Christmas_

 

_Christmas is so fu-fu-fucking gay_

  


As the song draws to the end, playing an 8-bit style outro, Shiro doesn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or be mildly impressed, facepalming as Hunk and Pidge start crumping to the beat, laughing and singing with every line as it repeats the chorus (which is apparently the ‘I’m beautiful’ stanza). For once, he doesn’t think there’s any point in reprimanding them, not when they seem to be having such a good time. He’s about to just leave, maybe go check on Allura because he is so done with the events of today already, when some slow clapping startles them all.

 

“Oh, I like it.” Keith is standing at the entrance to the hall, one of Coran’s protein bars hanging from his mouth as he claps a few more times. “That’s pretty cool, Pidge, the beat’s great. Big fan of the lyrics, too.” Smiling, he bites off a piece of the bar and wipes crumbs from his lips.

 

Pidge and Hunk freeze in their dancing, startled by Keith, and then looking back and forth between them as they didn’t realize he had been there either. Shiro stares sympathetically in Keith’s direction, trying to speak with his eyes that he obviously had no part in this.

 

“Uh, o-oh, Keith, we uh,” Hunk stammers, turning down the volume, “Sorry, man. We didn’t know you were there.”

 

Pidge beams back at him, removing her glasses to wipe the sweat from her brow.

 

“You really think it’s good?” she says a little breathlessly.

 

“Yeah, of course.” Keith laughs, and Shiro notes how much more tired he sounds than usual, how his hair is a tangled, sweaty mess. “Especially that part at the end. Honestly, what can I say? A+ use of my words, I should have been more careful.”

 

Even Pidge looks a little perturbed by how nonchalant Keith is being about it all, how not sarcastic any of it sounds. It’s as if time freezes as they wait, anticipating some snide remark, some sort of huffed indignance.

 

But all Keith does, pulling forward and gulping down the rest of his bar, is tilt his head and ask, “Can I have a copy of it?”

 

Hunk stares, Pidge cocks her head for a second before she responds, as if even she hasn’t been able to predict that something like this could be possible. Shiro clears his throat, searching for any hint of anger or a joke in Keith’s eyes, but he is nothing but serious. Not one to put on an act, only more questions push themselves to the forefront of Shiro’s mind, like what exactly Keith would even do with such ridiculous material.

 

“You sure as shit can, man,” Pidge recovers quickly, scrambling to her laptop and loading up the screen. Keith follows her, plopping down at her side, watches the screen over her shoulder.

 

He looks like he’s struggling to keep his eyes open, and Shiro gets mildly concerned if he might still be feeling sick from his hangover. He had just been in the training room and Keith wasn’t there, so he’s not sure why he seems so zapped of energy.

 

“Hey, uh, also,” Keith clears his throat and leans back on his hands, wincing for some reason as he does. “Do you...still have that santa hat? I know it’s kinda dumb, and you probably didn’t keep it, but uh--”

 

Keith stops abruptly when Hunk taps him on the shoulder, folded paper santa hat already at the ready. “Don’t worry, we got your back, man. It isn’t dumb, we know it’s important,” he says gently, putting a reassuring hand on Keith’s shoulder. Keith takes it, looking ultimately relieved since he’d been putting up a front in preparation of them possibly not having it.

 

“...Thanks, Hunk.” His fingers trace over the folds of the paper as he stares at it, the tiniest grin gracing his lips. Turning to Pidge, he repeats his gratitude.

 

Although focused on uploading files to a usb stick, she’s clearly listening as Shiro notices her glancing between the two of them. She grins, pushing a few buttons. “No problem. Merry day or so after Christmas, Keith.”

 

Keith furrows his brows, smoothing a crease away from the hat. “Is that a...thing?” he asks innocently, and both Hunk and Pidge laugh.

 

Shiro relaxes, smiles at the scene himself. They may not all have been friends and worked together in the beginning, but the progress they’ve made as a team is undeniable in this moment. They’ve all come such a long way, whether they see it or not - even Keith and Lance.

 

He decides to leave then, let them have their moment to bond.

 

Things may be tense between the two again, though he can’t really say that the tension ever really went away. Whatever happened between Lance and Keith back on Komian, was probably at least some sort of breakthrough with…well, their developing _relationship_ , Shiro thinks with a flush settling in his cheeks. Embarrassing things aside, if there’s one thing he’s sure of, they’ll get through this tumultuous time of confusing hormonal emotions just like the others have pulled together and become closer in their own, unique ways.

 

Leaving it all behind, thoughts turning to be set more towards Allura and her drunken words about love playing through his mind like the universe’s most beautiful broken record, Shiro isn’t around to hear Keith ask Pidge and Hunk where Lance might be, isn’t around to stop Pidge from suggesting to maybe check his room.

 

Things should set their own course sometimes, he supposes. ‘Go with the flow’ might be a philosophy he thought of as too frivolous once upon a time back at the garrison, back before his entire life was turned completely upside down, but because of Allura he’s starting to understand now.

 

In the end, there really isn’t anything more helpful you could do for someone than to let them stumble completely blind sighted and unsuspecting down a path from which sometimes there is no returning to the life you knew before.

 

And it’s fine, so long as they keep evolving, keep developing to a more sophisticated way of fumbling around like a fool.

  


* * *

 

  
  


When Lance returns to his room, he can only stare suspiciously at a small box sitting on his bed, which he most definitely did not put there himself before he left this morning.

 

It’s probably no bigger than his head, in normal brown packaging topped with a vibrant, red bow. A lot of thoughts, guesses of what may be in the box scroll through his mind. It could have been that Christmas present Pidge mentioned that Lance never actually received, or hopefully maybe another small ‘starglobe’ from Coran, which was like a snowglobe that showed galaxies you could carry around in your pocket and use like a map, a gift Coran had given him a while back to slightly ease his homesickness, but he had sadly lost it not long after during a mission.

 

A homemade batch of alien fudge from Hunk? A lock of Allura’s hair after he requested it that one time? (okay, so maybe that was unlikely, but he figures he might as well keep all options available to consider). A ‘dad’s fatherly advice to dealing with space stress’ pamphlet written by Shiro?

 

It could be anything, he thinks.

 

Eyeing the bow, his stomach turns, thoughts flashing back to a tunnel brimming with disorienting red lights.

 

It _could_ be from Keith.

 

That thought sort of bums him out. In that case, it might not be so nice.

 

“Keith hates me now,” he pouts to the room like a lovesick teenage girl who recently found out their crush only had eyes for someone else, flopping onto his bed and curling into himself, glaring at the box warily by his head.

 

He stares it down. He likes to imagine that the box is staring him down back.

 

“This is stupid, I guess,” he admits after a few minutes of this one man staring contest, and with curiosity always being successful in getting the better of him, he props himself up on an elbow and undoes the bow.

 

At first, when he dumps out the contents onto his sheets, he’s not so sure what he’s looking at, exactly.

 

There’s a small bottle with strange markings in another language that fits in the palm of his hand, making the clear liquid’s identity within it a mystery.

 

He’s contemplating what it could possibly be, when he notes the other two objects that fell out with it. Tossing the bottle back on the covers in disinterest, he observes that they both appear to be books or something. He picks the smaller one up, some glossy alien looking brochure or instruction manual, and opens it to the first page.

 

“Holy fuck,” he shrieks decidedly unmanly, launching the thing across the room in surprise, because what in the fresh zarkin’ hell.

 

“Oh no,” he croaks, watching as it opens up into a more detailed centerfold when it lands, hand coming up to his mouth with a gasp, an arm shielding his eyes. “ _Oh no oh no oh no_.”

 

Is this someone’s idea of a sick joke? Who would--who would ever--who would even leave such a thing for him to find? Scratch that - _why_ the hell would they leave such a thing?!

 

Swallowing thickly, he doesn’t bother opening the other one out of fear, instead focusing on the note that’s sitting on the floor which must have fluttered out when he threw the book. Moving off his bed, he bends over to pick it up, opens it with shaking hands.

 

_Lance -_

 

_All things considered, I meant to give this to you sooner, or at least on time before things escalated. Please continue to be smart about this, and be careful with Keith. We all care about you two very much._

 

_p.s. Allura assures me that these are accurate, and that Altean anatomy is extremely similar to humans. These are same sex guides. Don’t be afraid to ask questions if you need to, but we figured you might be, so please look over these and be safe. I don’t think the language barrier in it will be much of an issue because of the pictures, but there are simple translations near the backs of the books._

 

Lowering the paper in shock, Lance doesn’t have to be stuck wondering who it might be from even though there’s a lack of a signature. There’s only one person on board who speaks with that sort of caring parental tone, only one person who is close enough to and would dare discuss something like this with Allura.

 

Oh god. He’s never going to be able to look either of them in the eye ever again.

 

‘ _Before_ things escalated’? _Before_? He finds himself getting hung up on that in particular. Eyes drawing back to the explicit, colorful centerfold on the floor, he wonders what the hell everyone thinks he’s been doing with Keith recently.

 

Except he doesn’t have to wonder, really, because there’s no mistaking the obvious subject matter of these books.

 

The desperate eyes of a naked Altean male twisted into a pretzel like position stare back at him, judging him, daring him to do something about all this. His cheeks flush at the fact it has long, dark hair framing its face, impossibly pale skin, fragile looking wrists, small hands, full, pouty lips, a chiseled chest.

 

The markings under its eyes are even red.

 

The material of his pants instantly start to feel uncomfortable against his crotch. This isn’t fair, there’s no way those details are coincidences.

 

There’s so many more things glaringly wrong about this that Lance isn’t sure where to start.

 

The fact that Allura just has gay shit like this lying around for some unknown reason on the ship, the fact that Shiro fucking left _alien porn magazines_ on his bed while he was gone, the fact that the two of them apparently discuss giving them sex preparation talks as if they’re playing some strange form of voltron space house. Hell, even the fact Shiro just waltzed into his room without asking in the first place has anger surging through his veins.

 

He has a problem with nearly every line in this note, too. It’s so presumptuous! He isn’t _afraid_ to ask questions, there’s a lot of things he’d honestly like to know more about. He just doesn’t want to talk about these things with people who may as well be like his goddamn family!

 

And why _wouldn’t_ he be _safe_ with Keith? Why wouldn’t he be _careful_ with Keith, as Shiro so embarrassingly put it, in the instance that say, something like this _was_ going on?

 

He gulps, because now he’s _really_ thinking about it.

 

Feet carrying him towards the discarded book against his mind’s faint protests to call it a night and go to bed, he thinks about how this surely isn’t the first time he’s thought about doing these things with Keith, obviously. His dreams have been infiltrated by ultra-sexualized fantasies for so long now, it’s not exactly surprising anymore, and he finds there’s no real shame behind it like there used to be.

 

What is shameful to him - fingers lifting the book, tracing the outline of pornstar Altean Keith’s rockin’ bod - is that when he sees the pointed, bent back ears, he thinks about how that’s all wrong.

 

They’re cute, sure, but they’re the wrong shape, wrong size.

 

Keith’s ears are _way_ cuter - smaller, rounder, adorable with hair tucked behind them.

 

Keith doesn’t have _tattoos_ under his eyes, he has tiny, pretty freckles so faint one could miss them if they weren’t paying close enough attention. Keith doesn’t have a glowing matching stamp like tattoo on his backside, either - or at least Lance _assumes_ he probably doesn’t, wetting his now extremely dry lips.

 

Upon closer inspection of the image, Lance realizes Keith’s waist is leaner than this poor imitation’s, his shoulders much broader. Keith’s chest is more muscular than this twiggy guy, too, and his ass is most definitely tighter and rounder.

 

And, yeah, so maybe he’s never actually seen a Keith like this before in real life - a desperate, needy thing vying for his lusty attentions, but he knows for a fact Keith would never look so hungrily at him, would probably put on a scowl or a pout before he allowed himself to be so openly pampered  - and even then, the stubborn fuck would probably fight it, might  unromantically tell him to quit staring even as he was coming undone.

 

Looping the pad of his finger over its petite hands, he smiles at the biggest, most glaringly obvious problem with the whole overall picture. Keith would be too lame to take off those tacky, fingerless gloves during sex.

 

Nice try, pervy Altean almost-but-not-quite-entirely-unlike Keith, but _no dice_!

 

Fingers tightening on the pages, Lance flips past fake ass Keith, wondering -- wondering how he even knows this though, wondering how long it’s been since he’d subconsciously begun memorizing these very specific details about the body of a person who had supposedly always been his rival. He can’t really recall having a lot of downtime recently where he’s gotten the opportunity to stare at Keith for an extended period of time.

 

He flicks through some more pages, unimpressed, surveys diagrams of so many not-Keith’s in various states of undress and arousal, none of them stirring anything in him.

 

Memories flash back to him, memories of a time that seems like centuries ago, a chapter of his life where he _did_ have plenty of downtime to do exactly that. Memories of him somehow always being in the desk behind Keith’s in class at the Garrison, memories of him doodling cartoon sketches of a pouty mullet boy that maybe he’d been using to develop his figure studies more than he’d been using to vent with. Reflecting on all those drawings of little arrows piercing his mullet, all those times he scrawled pretend scissors to cut poor crying cartoon Keith’s hair in what he assumed was out of jealous anger, it seems a lot more like some odd preoccupation with said mullet than anything else when analyzed from a distance.

 

Now that he’s thinking about it, Keith was a pouty mullet headed boy that he’d been too busy staring at to actually do well in most of those classes.

 

Did he really always sit behind Keith to get the best angle for spitballs? Did he really always memorize these things for the sole purpose of making fun of them later? When had those intentions started changing, if ever?

 

He blanches, cheeks still impossibly hot, pants still chafing him.

 

Did he...did he ever actually _do_ that last thing, other than with his hair? When did he ever poke at Keith for having pretty freckles, or make snide remarks about his _cute ears_?

 

Holy shit. Mouth opening into a silent ‘oh’, the book slips between his fingers and clatters to the floor. He can’t think of when, because it never happened. He paid attention to all those things, told himself he was doing it to catalogue unique insults, then never once said a goddamn derogatory word about it, ever.

 

How long -- how long has it been like this?

 

Lance sits down on his bed before his legs get a chance to buckle completely, and although it should feel like his carefully constructed deny-literally-everything world is crumbling around him, it doesn’t. This is so long overdue, his brain simply allows him to adapt. He wriggles out of his pants, because fuck their restriction, and fuck his own fucking ignorance.

 

He’s such an idiot.

 

The strain of his erection there has nothing to do with looking through that book.

 

He isn’t hard right now because of those dumb pictures, he’s hard because he can’t stop thinking about Keith. And not just that - he isn’t even thinking about Keith in ways that could be considered pornographic.

 

Maybe shameful was the wrong word, because he isn’t exactly ashamed of liking Keith anymore, of feeling not so pure things about him, especially not after what Keith told him that night on Komian, not after the small, intimate moments they shared before that, building up over time.

 

It’s _different_ , _strange_ , maybe?

 

But...is it really?

 

His heart hurts currently when he thinks about Keith being angry with him, but his head used to ache equally as much on days Keith skipped those classes Lance only seemed to stay in to ‘harass’ him. And then there was that whole unrelenting, deep ache in his stomach which seemed to be unsettled for weeks - months, actually - after Keith was gone from the Garrison for good.

 

He thought he had been sick. He thought he’d had a permanent case of the flu, even though every time he brought up that theory, Pidge always laughed and rolled her eyes. She’d sigh and say in an exasperated, but concerned tone, ‘ _Permanent flu isn’t a thing, Lance. Go get some rest.’_ He spent weeks going back and forth to the infirmary anyway, only for all the nurses to tell him time and time again there was literally nothing physically wrong with him, until all they seemed to do was give him pitying glances, and yet--

 

Lance frowns, remembering not sleeping much during that time, hardly eating, barely keeping up with his homework or bothering to shower everyday, staying in bed more than usual. He remembers Hunk coming into his room to check on him a lot, Pidge sending him stupid memes and asking him if he needed anything more often than was her style to.

 

Things were hard for a long time and he wasn’t even sure why, and neither Pidge nor Hunk ever pushed him to talk about it, but they always seemed to be sharing these weird, knowing glances. When he entered a room they were already in, sometimes they’d abruptly stop talking and refuse to look him in the eyes.

 

But then he remembers pure elation in that moment of being reunited, how he could care less when Keith barely remembered _him_ , because _he_ remembered Keith, and that was all that really mattered then. He’d been - he thinks maybe he’d been scared that Keith had disappeared for good, was so entirely relieved when he saw he was still a living, breathing thing tangible in front of him, and not just some extended passing ghost of a memory he once spent so much time focusing on.

 

Hands idly trailing along his inner thighs, fingers urgently pulling down the hem of his boxers, Lance acknowledges for the first time that maybe he doesn’t just want to fuck Keith senseless, doesn’t just _like_ Keith.

 

With goosebumps prickling his newly exposed flesh, he sighs when he grips his aching cock, thinks again about being _careful_ with Keith, being _safe_ with him.

 

He pumps himself slowly, groans, pictures carefully laying Keith down on the bed, about carefully parting his legs while he presses gentle kisses on his mouth, over his neck reassuringly. Lance thinks about things that aren’t particularly erotic, but have him keening harder, have precum dripping, sliding faster down his shaft. Things like taking the time to prop a pillow under Keith’s back beforehand, things like playing with his hair and making sure he’s comfortable before he so much as lays another finger on that detailed map of his body he knows all too well already.

 

He _really_ likes Keith.

 

Picturing this makes him happier beyond what words can express. Lance shakes with tension and anticipation when he crawls to his hands and knees to get a better angle to fit his fantasy, imagining asking Keith things like ‘is this alright?’ before he goes any further, ‘does this feel good?’ when he spreads him open, ‘tell me if it hurts at all, and I’ll stop’ as he prepares to sink into him.

 

“Fuck,” Lance cries, thrusting harder into his hand mid-thought, because this Keith is the real Keith, not like most of his dream Keiths, not like fake ass pervy Altean not-Keith. He’s _genuine_ , reacting with all the normal things that probably come with a first time - anxiety, nervousness, embarrassment, but Lance doesn’t want to make fun of him.

 

He wants to support him.

 

This Keith is scowling a lot, flushing a little, surely making fun of _Lance_ during the times he loses himself unexpectedly and gets self-concious. This Keith is blunt and would _never_ tell Lance he was doing a good job if he wasn’t, but he realizes he’s alright with that. Real Keith isn’t good at cheap, porny scripted lines, because he’s fucking Keith. His hands aren’t working miracles, but fumble just like Lance’s would, just like his fingers are now as they lose any hope at keeping a rhythm with his hips jerking this wildly.

 

Lance really, _really_ likes Keith.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Trudging down the hall, santa hat in one hand, usb drive in the other, Keith flinches when he remembers, for probably the thousandth time that day, the look on Lance’s face when he yelled at him last night.

 

That sort of expression wasn’t something he’s ever seen before in a person, and especially not from someone as carefree as Lance.

 

In his short life, Keith has yelled at many, many people and things in his anger. He’s yelled at bullies and at teachers, at people who deserved it and people who probably didn’t. Yelled at children and old people alike, yelled at the stars in the sky when they didn’t reveal the answers he’d been looking for, yelled at computers when they didn’t work right, yelled at the stray cat he used to feed scraps to as a kid when it scratched him after he tried picking it up that one time.

 

The list goes on and on. His fiery temper is a fickle, tiring thing, something that’s familiar and sometimes comforting, but also something he doesn’t particularly want. He deals with emotions the only way he knows how most times - by lashing out.

 

And so he moves on, because in the end, what he does doesn’t seem to ever hurt anyone, being mostly victimless crimes anyway, or being aimed at people he doesn’t have any attachments to, any feelings towards.

 

But this was--this had been indescribably painful to watch. Keith had regretted it the second his stupid mouth had closed.

 

There was no way to deny that Lance had been crestfallen, hurt showing clearly on his features, like someone had just mercilessly shot his puppy in front of him. Keith walks a little faster, legs carrying him towards a purposeful path, to a place where he needs to go to set things right again. His fingers clench reflexively, and the strain of his swollen joints calms him somewhat, keeps him grounded and in more familiar territory.

 

He isn’t expecting to hear strange noises when he finally makes it to Lance’s door after seeming to walk for forever, isn’t prepared to deal with what he sees when the sensor registers he’s there and silently slides open before he can get the damned thing to take it back.

 

His mouth opens, closes, repeats the motions. He almost drops the santa hat, which jumps from his startled hands, but he catches it right before it flutters to the ground. He would have definitely said some sort of exclamation if he hadn’t had the proper sense to clap his hand to his mouth.

 

Lance doesn’t notice him  - scratch that, probably wouldn’t notice, so into what he’s doing that Keith briefly contemplates what would happen if he crept up behind him and then tapped him on the shoulder out of nowhere, shouting something completely inappropriate like “surprise!”.

 

...God, that was a bad place to go. A really, really bad place to go. Why the hell did he think that? Getting that close to Lance right then would be the absolute worst thing he could probably do, and if he actually _did_ do it, he sure as hell wouldn’t be saying fucking ' _surprise '_. He highly doubts he’d be saying anything except maybe curses and moans, maybe teasing words and filthy things that would be unlike him. Keith’s fingers twitch with the need to do it anyway, to walk in and touch, because Lance is _beautiful_ , and there’s no barrier there at all, nothing stopping him from reaching out and--

 

Hooking two fingers into his mouth to stifle the small moan that threatens to tumble out, Keith tries to stay in the shadow of the doorway, so when he leaves he won’t startle Lance as the door makes that little click when it closes.

 

He shouldn’t be standing there, and he shouldn’t continue watching such a private, passionate scene, but he is, and he does. It’s mesmerizing, the most tantalizing thing Keith has ever seen.

 

And Lance is, fuck, Lance is spread wide with his bare ass in the air facing away from him on his hands and knees on the bed (which can hardly be compared to the way it felt when Keith groped at it in the water). Face pressed into the pillows, his shirt is still on, so the hem has fallen to his chest, revealing a muscular, highly defined torso. The noises he’s making are jarringly loud, gasps and whimpers much lewder and more pornographic than they have any right to be.

 

He’s close, maybe, Keith isn’t sure. Lance grunts, stops briefly to raise his shirt over his head and tosses it across the room, fortunately not looking back at all when he does. Keith’s heart rate spikes when Lance’s head snaps towards the ceiling, back arching, revealing a trickle of sweat that slides between his shoulderblades. With a long, drawn out moan, his pace increases, hips jerking back and forth in a way that gives Keith the most incredible view of his backside as he angles it higher. His strokes are frenzied and impatient, so desperate and needy that it is taking everything in Keith’s resolve to not go in, flip him over, pin him down--

 

“Fuck,” Keith whispers behind his palm, other hand flexing into a fist, taking a few quiet steps back. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

 

“I, god, _please_.” Luckily Lance’s voice rises at the same time between panting, huffing little breaths and moans. “Want more, need you, yes, just like that. You’re so--”

 

Crying out mid-sentence, Lance is overwhelmed for a moment, bucking harder, pumping faster. He struggles to form words, spits a mix of garbled things that Keith struggles along with him to comprehend.

 

“So cute, so soft, so good, feels good.”

 

Keith’s whole body is buzzing with sensation, temperature rising to the point that it feels like he’s in a sauna. His erection is insistent, pressing so hard against his zipper he’s surprised it doesn’t pop open. He can feel the dampness there, is sure he’s staining his pants. Gulping, he honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he came without even touching the aching need throbbing between his thighs.

 

“Pretty, pretty hair, _fuck_ , wanna touch--”

 

From the angle Keith is at, he can visibly see the tightening and contracting of Lance’s muscles, can barely make out the outline of the head of his cock as it appears and disappears between the frantic strokes of thin, deft fingers.

 

He’s perfect, Keith thinks.

 

There’s so many things, so many thoughts about what he’d like to do to Lance right then, how he’d like to touch him and speak to him. But above all, he wants to see his face, wants to look at him as he caresses every inch of bare flesh, drags lips across every sensitive area. He wants to find those pressure points, wants to be the one who brings him to climax, wants to be the reason behind his ecstasy. Keith’s breath hitches, and readjusting his pants, he moves a little farther back. If he times leaving right as Lance comes, he shouldn’t hear the door shut.

 

As if on cue, Lance is there, body trembling, keening harder, so lovely. He cries out one last, loud thing before he relaxes, slows.

 

“ _Keith_ , I lo--”

 

And then Keith is running, harder than he has ever been in his life, santa hat clasped between his fingers soaked with sweat. He’s practically leaping down the hall, skittering as far away as he possibly can get from the images, from whatever Lance was about to say next, from the emotional tsunami that threatens to engulf him.

 

He runs away from it all, because that’s easier, that’s for the best.

 

But the dam has clearly broken, the waves already rising, and when Keith gets back to his room, he’s not sure if he has the strength to fight against the riptides anymore.  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rip peace keith
> 
> here lies his super gay boner for Lance, it lived a good life
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> also, sorry about the late update! life has been kind of crazy, but hopefully the length makes up for that <3


	13. How Dare You Try to Woo Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone get this boy some dry shampoo.

It’s been two days since Lance unknowingly walked in on Keith’s very private interaction with his lion, and for whatever reason, he’s starting to get the feeling that Keith is avoiding him.

This should have felt far too familiar far sooner than it did, really, and if he were to be honest with himself, he’d have to admit that maybe he deserves this. He’d spent far more time than this avoiding Keith before—berating him unfairly, causing so much animosity within the group that he’s surprised that anyone wants to continue interacting with him at all. He reassures himself that whichever holiday Hunk and Pidge decide that it will be next, he’s going to stay up all night making everyone something really nice to make up for it.

Or, at the very least, something that might show them how much he really appreciates them putting up with him all the time.

As luck would have it, when he wakes up on the second morning since everything went down, he’s greeted in the dining hall by a wide array of glaringly bright pink—from paper hearts hung from strings from the ceiling, to poor Rover barely able to float about with a heavy, hideous pink and purple crown of hearts sitting on top of it. He doesn’t really understand what Pidge’s apparent fascination with putting hats and crowns on Rover is, but he has to admit, despite what Keith might think, it’s kind of cute, in a weird, child-genius-floating-aimlessly-in-space-and-struggling-to-find-ways to-busy-herself-during-their-downtime sort of way.

Allura smiles brightly at him from across the table as he takes a seat, raising his eyebrow suspiciously as Hunk spoons him a plateful of the same goo that they’re eaten almost every other morning since they left on this journey, only mysteriously neon pink. He wonders if Coran was hiding some kind of alien food coloring somewhere in the kitchen, or if maybe this junk isn’t so much for eating as it is for the aesthetic.

Oh well, he thinks. If he dies from this goo, at least he won’t have to think of a way to make all of this up to Keith. Even considering going up to him, trapping him somehow, apologizing profusely—maybe even groveling a bit—the entire idea of it makes his stomach turn unpleasantly.

He might be in love with the guy, sure, but he’s definitely not stupid enough to think that begging for Keith’s forgiveness is going to be anything short of humiliating.

“Lance,” Allura says softly, setting down her spoon and sending him another gentle smile, “I was just telling everyone about the planet that we’re approaching. It’s the most curious coincidence, but right as we entered their galaxy, they began to put out a distress signal. Coran and I are hoping to reach them within a day, so…”

She trails off, looking off into the distance as her eyes momentarily glaze over. Lance feels his stomach drop, losing his appetite from the strange, off-putting appearance of someone as dignified and confident as Allura seeming so lost so suddenly.

“I do hope that we can reach them in time.”

Shiro, sitting quietly by her side until now, reaches over and places a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“The other planets sent out their signals for some time before we arrived,” he tells her, “Rengaron will be okay. Just like the rest of them.”

Lance turns his eyes away from them, hoping to give them a little privacy now that things seem to have taken on a different vibe. The way that they’re gazing into each other’s eyes is a little too personal for him, he thinks, a little too reminiscent to the memories of beaches on planets far off in the universe, that still manage to crawl into even his most mundane dreams.

He thinks of the way that Keith had reached forward and kissed him, warm lips wet and eager, eyes sparkling in the red moon like tiny gemstones. He thinks about those calloused fingers twining through his hair, holding him close, filling him with the warmth of life that he’d felt so empty of for so, so long.

He thinks about how Keith has made him start thinking about things like this, like he’s the hopeless, love-struck protagonist in some trashy romance novel, like everything that’s so fucked up in this universe could possibly be okay if only they could find themselves together in the end.

He smothers the tiny voice inside of him that tells him that maybe that’s right, maybe it could.

It’s too early for this.

Hunk and Pidge are chatting about who they think that their Valentines are going to be. There’s a definite sarcasm in each of their tones that doesn’t go unnoticed, and he rolls his eyes as he ponders why they even decided to conjure up this holiday if they both seem to hate it so much.

“Rover’s obviously going to be mine,” Pidge says, reaching out to tug at Rover’s little crown as it flies close enough, “The perfect partner: reliable, smart, and quiet.”

Hunk laughs around a spoonful of goo.

“Can I just celebrate alone?” he asks, “Or can the goo be mine? Nothing gets my heart racing like a nice plate of goo, you know.”

Just as they’re beginning to suggest more and more ridiculous Valentines, the door to the dining hall hisses open, and all eyes turn to see which of the two missing crew members might be making their appearance.

Lance hopes for Coran, hopes that he can make it through breakfast without anything painfully awkward happening, but even when he turns and locks eyes with a brooding, frazzled looking Keith, he finds that his heart rate still skyrockets and he can’t will himself to look away.

There are dark circles shadowed beneath Keith’s eyes. His greasy hair stands up in all directions. His clothes are wrinkled, and if Lance squints enough, he can make out the tiny, dark stains against the faded black fabric of his shirt—the blood, the sweat, the machine oils, and dirt.

He looks like he slept in a dumpster. Or even like he’s never slept a day in his life at all.

Before Lance can even gather the courage to smile, or say anything at all that might begin to mend things between them, Keith takes one look at him, screws his face up in the most disgusted expression that Lance has ever had the misfortune of receiving, and turns on his heel and leaves.

He pauses only to send Rover an even nastier glare, muttering something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like, _"That's just not right."_

The door seems to be louder than usual as it slides closed. Rover beeps in what Lance decides must be confusion.

And for whatever reason, everyone carries on as though nothing just happened at all.

He almost asks about it, almost shoves back in his chair and stands dramatically, almost announces that everyone is being purposefully blind to this and demands to know what the Hell is going on, but for whatever reason, he stops himself.

Keith’s glare stung, for some reason, despite the fact that he’s been on the receiving end of those glares a thousand times before. The coldness in those usually fiery eyes, as though the flame which once charged him had finally been extinguished. How disheveled he’d looked. How tired he’d seemed. Lance feels lightheaded with sensory overload, for what feels as though it might be the millionth time this month. He feels as though he’s a detective on one of those cheesy crime shows, finally catching the coattails of the villains, finally getting to the bottom of a big case.

He thinks about the way that Keith had stormed off when he’d told Pidge that he didn’t remember anything about their time on Komium. He thinks about that final, snide remark.

_“If we don’t remember, it didn’t happen, right?”_

God, he’s such an idiot.

How did he not catch this before?

Without really thinking about how he must look, he rises from the table hurriedly, knocking over his chair and stumbling toward the door.

He needs to find Keith. That’s all that matters right now.

Numbly, he can hear Shiro calling out behind him. He can hear Pidge and Hunk saying something snide and laughing. He can hear Allura reminding him to get plenty of rest before they reach Rengaron.

None of it matters, not right now.

He slips through the door, takes a sharp left around the corner, vision zeroed in on Keith’s room, on the path that he’s taken to get there a hundred times before.

His heart pounds in his throat, premature heat rising to his face at the mere thought of looking Keith in the eyes and pouring out his heart. He’s going to lay everything out. He’s going to confess. He’s going to say things that he doesn’t even really understand how to say—he’ll find a word to describe how terribly gay all of this is. He’ll find a way to make Keith understand that he remembers, he really does. He’d lied about it out of fear, he’d been too much of a coward to face it.

He wants to be the person who comforts Keith when he’s trembling, dipping his fingers in the water, alone, on Androgia. He wants to be a man who’s strong enough to bear the weight of all of this, for both of them.

He wants to be a family that Keith can spend Christmas with—all of the holidays, all of the hours and days, and years, no longer alone anymore.

The door to Keith’s room slides open effortlessly. It’s eerily quiet, so dark that he can barely make out the mound of blankets balled up on the corner of the mattress.

There’s a smell here, so strong that it overwhelms his senses even from the threshold of the door—like fruity shampoo, like sweat, like that fucking hyper-masculine candy shop scent that’s haunted his dreams for God-knows how long now.

He isn’t entirely sure why he does it, and he’s positive that if Keith finds him here like this, it will only cause more unwanted problems between them, but he steps forward into the room. He’s never actually been in here before, only caught slight glimpses of it as he’s walked down the hall from time to time, or peered in briefly when he can Keith have actually managed to get along enough to talk.

It feels like stepping foot inside of a church, or even some kind of futuristic mausoleum. He shakes away those bizarre thoughts, reassuring himself that no level of thirst for another person could ever manage to make them that Godly. This is just a regular old room. Just a normal… every day… room that just happens to belong to the guy who he’s been pining after for, what, years now? The room where he sleeps, where he… undresses at night… where… sometimes, when the mood strikes, maybe… sometimes… he even _touches himself_ …

He lets out a long breath, running a trembling hand through his hair. The lights flicker on automatically, whirring high above him and illuminating the small, cramped space that makes up Keith’s bedroom.

There’s a knife wrapped in what appears to be bandages sitting as innocently as a knife can on the bed. He tells himself that he doesn’t recognize it because it’s always obscuring his view of Keith’s perfect ass—no, he only recognizes it because, for whatever reason, Keith tends to carry the stupid thing around with him everywhere that he goes. It’s a little unusual, he realizes, that he doesn’t have it on him right now.

Shaking his head, he spots the jacket hanging from a hook on the wall—looking a little filthier and worse for wear than he remembers it. If Keith went to take a shower, he wishes that he would have remembered to wash his clothes too. He scrunches up his nose in disgust, wondering what his mother would have to say about a guy like Keith.

She was always so particular about his brothers and sisters, and himself, keeping clean. He still remembers the stern frown that would pull down her lips when she’d check behind his ears after his baths as a child—as though she could somehow spot the fact that he’d neglected to wash there. If he wore a pair of socks more than once, there was Hell to pay, sure, but he likes to think that having a mother so strict about these things somehow made him a better person.

Or, at the very least, a better smelling person.

Unlike Keith.

He’s pondering the concept of his mother tugging Keith by the ear, snapping at him to go back into the bathroom and scrub the rest of that filth off right now, _or else_ , as he steps further and further into the room, feet catching on something on the floor and knocking him forward.

His head catches the edge of the bed—thankfully the soft padding of the mattress, as his hands fly forward to save him before he face-plants on the floor completely.

He takes a moment to collect himself after the fall, breathing deeply in and out, telling himself that he can’t get angry and kick at whatever he’d tripped over just in case it’s fragile. He doesn’t want Keith finding out that anyone was in here. He doesn’t want to widen the gradually widening gap between them even further.

Finally, he cranes his neck to look behind him, slowly dragging his body around so that he can sit his butt comfortably on the floor. It’s a box, made of something that looks as though it could be cardboard, but knowing this ship, it’s probably more advanced than that. It’s only a foot wide, at the most, maybe half a foot deep, and the lid is partially knocked off, be it from his tripping over it, or Keith’s own haste to leave after opening it.

He doesn’t even have time to revel in the horror that maybe this is a _stash_ of some kind—that maybe Shiro or Allura left Keith one of those disturbing books as well, and he’s found himself so enamored with it that he'd decided to store it somewhere for future use. No, his nosy fingers reach eagerly forward, nudging off the lid as he leans forward to get a better look.

There isn’t a whole lot inside. There are a few sparkling stones, jagged edges worn smooth to the touch. He takes a moment to lift each of them, contemplating how many times Keith must have looked at these, wondering why in the world he’d decided to pick them up from whichever planet and bring them with him. He couldn’t have possibly liked them just because they were pretty. He must have have some motive far more brutish, far more _Keith-like_ than that.

The only similarity between them—all three sparkling, all three beautiful under the overbearing light above—is that, despite the fact that they’re all obviously from different ecosystems, they’re all the same shade of light, translucent blue. One is porous, like a hard sponge in his palms, while another feels like solid water. The last one could be a shell, he thinks, with tiny, rhinestone-like flecks of blue stones glinting each time that he moves it around.

It doesn’t make much sense, so he decides not to dwell on it for now. He places each stone gingerly back into the bottom of the box, moving a few things around until something else catches his eye.

His fingers grace the edges of what seems to be a very old, very worn photograph. He pinches the side of it nervously, careful not to tear it further as he pulls it close to his face. He can barely make out the grainy outline of two people—the taller shadow of one figure, and the short, stubby blur of another. They appear to be holding hands, maybe, and it might be his imagination, but they’re look like they’re smiling. A little clearer is the background—the sunny shores of a beach, seagulls printed in black swatches against a bright blue sky. If he squints enough, he can make out the eyes of the taller person, a woman, he thinks, with a familiar slope of thick brows, and a smile that seems as though he’s seen it a thousand times.

Troubled, he places the photo back into the box.

Under a few broken blades, a few spare robotic parts, a few recipes written in Hunk’s tell-tale hand on the ripped corners of scrolls and napkins from various alien bars, he feels as though all of the air is being sucked out of his lungs when he finds the Santa hat from Komium, tucked away in the bottom corner.

It’s soft now, after being touched so many times. The color has faded from vibrant red to a dull, rosy pink. The puffball is tattered, as though someone was carrying it around in their pocket, as though someone had been worrying the edges of it time and time again.

He isn’t sure why that causes a warm, heavy knot to coil in his belly. He isn’t sure why he feels the prickles of something overwhelming and emotional in the corners of his eyes.

He drops the hat back in the box, reaches a numb hand over and grasps the lid.

When he’s sure that he’s left everything the way that it was before he came in, he takes one long, hard look at the room behind him, and he steps out into the hall.

_“Um, never, never, never have I ever...celebrated Christmas before this.”_

_“Cause I think you’re beautiful, dude. So like, we’re even.”_

_“and even—even if you hate me… I think… I’d still chase you.”_

His head swims with memory—so vivid, so fresh that he can still feel the tug of the water pulling around him, can still smell the sweetness of Keith’s shampoo. For a moment, he feels as though he’s lying back on the beach, in the heat of a Komium summer, under a pool of the blood red moon. He can almost feel the softness of the sand beneath his palms, can almost swear that his lips warm with the sensation of being kissed over and over again.

He places his back against the wall next to Keith’s door. He allows himself to breathe through this, to sit still and let this barrage of memories finally pass. The arousal that comes with these memories, when he thinks of curling around Keith’s naked body, when he thinks about how close they were, how he’d felt as though they’d become one, single entity in that moment, feels muted beneath the unnameable emotion that rattles through his veins now.

This need to hold Keith close. This want to understand him, to know where he’s come from, where he wants to go next.

To be someone who Keith might want to take with him, wherever that may be.

Once his breathing evens out, he’s suddenly aware of a pulse working its way through the wall behind him. At first, he doesn’t understand exactly what he’s feeling, and he worries that maybe this rapid change in blood flow that’s been plaguing him every time that his mind wanders to Keith (which is happening more and more often, no matter how hard he tries to fight it, if he could even consider this to be trying at all anymore) has somehow affected his body; if maybe he’s messed up his senses somehow, until he realizes that the pulsing is the rhythmic beating of a bass, and the source of that seems to be Pidge’s room, only two doors away.

With one final, forlorn look in the direction of Keith’s room, he pushes himself off of the wall, ambling down the hall towards Pidge’s room. He might as well see what’s going on with her, since it seems as though Keith is determined to make himself as scarce as possible. Maybe, if he avoids the dining hall long enough, Keith will find the nerve to actually go back in there and eat something. Maybe a full stomach will finally allow him to get some sleep.

Lance clears his throat, shoving his hands in his pockets. He’s starting to remind himself of his mom.

Before he knows it, he wouldn’t be surprised if he caught himself lecturing Keith about washing behind his ears.

He peeks through Pidge’s open door when he reaches her room, furrowing his brows as he spots her and Hunk wiggling around to the beat of some strange, choppy techno song that’s blaring from the speakers of a radio that he’s never seen before. It’s bigger than the little boombox that she was fiddling with during breakfast a few days ago. It’s shiny in some places, dull and rusted in others, and it doesn’t take a genius to realize that she’s pieced this thing together with any stray part that she could get her grubby little hands on.

He’s about to announce his arrival, if only to spare himself from having to watch any of more of this seizure-like wriggling that they must think counts as dancing, when he picks up the familiar voice humming over the drumbeat through the speakers.

It almost sounds like—

No, it’s definitely—

No, it can’t—

It’s—

It’s _Keith_.

_Cause I think_

_I think_

_You’re beautiful_

_I think_

_We’re even_

The beat pulse a few more times, building up toward a bass drop that Pidge and Hunk are preparing themselves for—er… maybe. They’re doing some terrible rendition of the slow-motion robot, bending their knees and crouching down, surely ready to jump the moment that the song reaches its peak.

The absolute surrealism of this entire situation roots him to the spot, just long enough for him to be mortified when his own voice rings out as the tempo continues to climb.

A short silence, his own words:

_B-beautiful?_

_You think_

_I’m beautiful?_

And both Pidge and Hunk hop up into the air as the bass finally drops, crashing down with a booming thud as their feet hit the floor.

Hunk is the first one to spin around, nearly toppling over as he finally spots Lance in the doorway. He lets out a pitiful squeak, pacing backwards so fast that he knocks into Pidge, who doesn’t stop dancing.

“Hunk, rude, what the—”

She turns too, finally, and Lance feels like he might actually regurgitate his own stomach.

Her smile drops immediately, and the music falls silent. He can’t really see how she managed to shut it off without moving, but he doesn’t question it. He’s seeing red. He feels revolted, humiliated—he feels as though this entire struggle, everything that he’s worked so hard to get through has managed to make itself into the punchline of another joke. He feels like an absolute moron.

He opens and closes his mouth a few times, raising his hands out in front of him and shaking his head. A few rageful squawks manage to push through his lips, but he can’t seem to find the right words to say.

“D-dude,” Hunk all but whimpers, looking smaller than Lance has ever seen him before, “God, dude, we were gonna tell you—u-uh, we… it—it was just for fun, dude. We’re all on it. It’s not just—”

“Whatever Hunk,” Lance finally manages to spit, voice sitting a few too many octaves above what he would prefer in a moment like this, but he can’t stop himself, “I—I can’t—I can’t believe you’d—y-you’d both do this to me, I—”

He stops mid-sentence, contemplating everything that happened back on Komium, combing through his memories and flicking his gaze towards Pidge’s radio. He lowers his hands, cocking his head to the side.

Hunk sputters a little, apologizing profusely as Pidge crosses her arms and frowns guiltily at the floor.

But Lance isn’t paying a whole lot of attention to them anymore. He thinks about the fact that Pidge recorded everything that night. He thinks about how small and portable that little radio that she’d been working on at breakfast appeared to be.

He thinks about Keith holding him close, singing softly in his ear.

A smile creeps out along his lips. Hunk goes silent, backing away even further.

“Pidge,” Lance draws out, sweeping dramatically into the room until he’s standing mere inches away from her, “Pidge, you—”

She opens her mouth, beginning an apology, but he cuts her off as he grasps her shoulders in each hand. He lowers himself down to her level, adrenaline vibrating through his bones as he trembles in excitement.

“Pidge, you’re a genius! This is absolutely genius!”

Pidge shirks away, obviously fearful, obviously frazzled.

“I, uh,” she struggles to shrug off his hands, but he only grips her tighter, shaking her lightly, “are you… are you okay?”

Hunk moves forward to pry them apart, but within a single second, Lance swerves Pidge over, facing her to the radio.

“I’m fine, Pidge, more than fine! _I’m excellent_! I’m _amazing_ , really!”

Hunk laughs uncomfortably.

“Listen,” Lance says, finally releasing her, “You’re both going to help me with something, got it? To make up for whatever the Hell all of this was.”

To their credit, they do try to look excited, or even maybe hopeful. Lance ignores their worried frowns, only focusing his attention on the radio.

He thinks of the lonely, saddened smile that Keith showed him in the dark. He thinks of folding back all of those pages, finally peeking deep into the creases of Keith’s heart.

He thinks about the song, about the heat of their bodies tangled so close together on the sand.

His grin stretches so wide that his cheeks ache. He reaches out, pulling Hunk toward him, draping an arm over each of their shoulders.

“I wanna do something for Keith,” he tells them, “And you guys are gonna help me make that happen.”

 

* * *

 

Keith stretches, working out all of the kinks that have gathered in his back and shoulders as he’s trained. The holographic enemies around him sputter out and disappear, as the electronic voice overhead announces the end of this session.

He drags a hand through his hair, scraping dull nails along his sweaty scalp, wondering if it’s late enough that it might actually be safe to take a shower without fear of seeing anyone else. The last few times that he’s tried, he’s run into Shiro, toweling off his wet hair and sending him a smile so pitying, so _knowing_ , that he can’t stand sitting still under that unrelenting stare for too long. It makes him feel as though Shiro knows more than he’s letting on—and maybe he does, really. It’s not like Keith has been trying too hard to keep anything that’s happened between him and Lance secret all this time.

Lance, on the other hand…

He can’t possibly think that all of the nosy-asses around them haven’t figured anything out. If so, he’s really a Hell of a lot more dense than Keith could have ever imagined.

He pulls his hair out of its customary ponytail, stuffing the rubber band inside of his pocket before deactivating his bayard. For a moment, he simply sits still and listens to the whirring of the fans overhead, the quiet chirping of the controls around him, and his own labored breathing. His clothes cling to him with sweat, and he can’t deny that he smells atrocious—even for him.

Fastening his bayard to his belt, he finally gathers the courage to leave.

Honestly, this is pathetic. He can’t deny that.

He remembers how on edge he’d felt when Lance was pulling this exact same bullshit however many weeks ago—how he’d grappled with the confusion, the discomfort of not knowing what he’d done to deserve such a cold response—and for the most part, he just feels guilty.

But then he tries to push himself to actually _talk_ to Lance, and that’s when things get difficult.

Every time that he gets within a few feet of Lance, he can’t stop the memories from rushing back—Lance, crouched forward on his bed, knees parted, the round, perfect globe of his ass pressed upward into the air. In his dreams, he allows himself to imagine that it was presented to him in invitation, that the words spilling out from Lance’s tightly pursed lips were begging him to step forward into the shadows of his room and slide between each of those artfully sculpted cheeks.

Even now, his fingers itch with the urge to drag themselves along that smooth, sweat dampened skin. He remembers the way that Lance had glistened then, in that moment, how his head had tilted back toward the ceiling, how his lust-reddened ears had just _begged_ for Keith to come closer and take one of them between his teeth.

He imagines dragging his lips down the nape of Lance’s neck, leaving the dark brand of love-marks on all of the private places on Lance’s body, that only the two of them would ever get the chance to see.

Breathing suddenly ragged, erection chafing against the fly of his suddenly far-too-tight pants, he stumbles on unreliable legs toward the bathroom.

It’s not fair for Lance to have the ability to unravel him completely, without realizing it at all.

It’s not fair that he can’t come too close without folding in on himself before he can even muster the courage to reach out and touch him.

It’s not fair that they’re trapped in this oversized tin can of a castle, with no real hiding places to sit back and wait for all of this to blow over.

It’s not fair that he’s not strong enough to march right into Lance’s room right now and tell him how desperately he wants to relive that night on Komium’s beach every single day for the rest of their lives.

It’s not fair, no, but it’s the reality that he’s currently stuck living in.

The lights in the hall flicker to life as the door to the training deck slides closed behind him. It’s quiet here, and he wonders if everyone else has already went to bed. He isn’t sure how long he’d holed himself up, and considering that their next destination is less than a day away, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for everyone else—people who actually know how to take care of themselves and make responsible decisions—to decide to go to bed early.

His footsteps echo against the walls. His heartbeat rattles in his ears. His breathing eventually evens out, as the sweat on his skin cools enough that he feels clammy and somehow even more disgusting than before. He convinces himself that he’s going to take a goddamn shower regardless of who he finds in the bathroom when he gets there, but he’s not deluded enough to fool himself into believing that it’s the truth. The only thing that he knows positively is that if Lance is waiting in there, he could easily go another year without bathing.

Carefully, he sneaks around the corner, flinching as the lights behind him flicker out and the ones above the long hall ahead whir to life. It’s not noisy enough that he has to be afraid of anyone waking up—and even if it was, this part of the ship is opposite of their bedrooms. He tries not to think about the fact that any amount of yelling—or moaning, or screaming, or _thumping_ —could rattle anyone else out of sleep. He tries to keep his thoughts absolutely Lance-free for the sole sake of making it into the shower without needing to clean a mess out of the front of his pants.

When he finally arrives in front of the bathroom and the door slides open, he peers inside, whipping his head from left to right. The coast seems to be clear this time. He can’t hear the tell-tale pattering of water against the tile floor. He can’t hear Hunk’s crisp whistling or Shiro humming the old chants that they’d learned all the way back in their first year at the Garrison. There’s no Pidge muttering to herself, no belting of Lance’s off-key singing—that he’s starting to suspect is so bad for the sole purpose of scaring away anyone else who might want to take a shower at the same time.

Sucking in a deep breath, he wills himself to slide inside of the room. He wishes that these doors came with locks. He wishes that the concept of privacy weren’t apparently completely lost on Altean engineers.

His dirty clothes find themselves in a messy pile in the corner of the room. The water begins to spray automatically, heating itself to his preferred temperature. He stares up at the tall, tall ceiling, furrowing his brows as the water taps against his chest.

His hands find the body wash, work a lather against his skin. He tips his head down, watching as the dirt clinging relentlessly to his body mingles with the soap suds and the water, swirling down the drain.

He thinks about Lance’s smile, Lance’s laugh.

He thinks about all of those stupid pop songs that Lance works through during his showers like a strangled cat caught in a garbage disposal.

He thinks about the soft moans pushing themselves through Lance’s throat, the subtle twitches, the curl of his toes. The soft outline of his spine bending as his muscles had twitched in the darkness, as his fist had blurred in its rapid movements between his knees.

Keith’s fingers, suddenly gaining an awareness of their own, sneak down over his navel, mapping out sharp hipbones, and stopping for only a moment to trace down the trail of hair between them. He wonders if Lance shaves. He didn’t get a good enough look. He wonders if Lance takes care of himself everywhere, as well as he does with those silly facemasks and hair products that Keith still isn’t entirely sure where they came from.

He’s already achingly hard when his fingers hint at the base of his erection. He wonders if Lance would touch someone else with as much vigor as he’d touched himself. Or if he’d hesitate, suddenly unsure, suddenly insecure.

He likes to imagine a timid Lance underneath him, almost as much as he likes to imagine finally wiping that cocky smirk right off of his stupid, pretty face. A timid Lance could lie vulnerably, would tell him things like _‘be careful’, ‘be gentle’, ‘this is my first time’._

And he’d kiss him then, maybe. He’d make him feel so good that he couldn’t concentrate on his self-consciousness anymore. It might hurt at first, but he’d chase the pain away. He’d hold Lance close. He’d figure it out, surely, play by play. He’d learn how people like to be held, to be touched. He’d kiss Lance so gingerly that he’d know just how terribly Keith has wanted this for so much longer than he could even realize.

He’d tell Lance, _“I love you”_ —he definitely would, and he'd mean it. He’d tell him, _“You’re perfect to me.”_ He can’t really fathom what that sort of thing feels like, how loving someone works. How it feels to be loved by anyone at all, but he’d try.

Lance would writhe beneath him. He’d call out his name.

He’d say, _“Keith, touch me, please.”_

And he would.

Fist wrapped firmly around his erection, he wills himself to slow down. He’s working himself so hastily that the squelching of the shower gel is echoing against the walls, as his breathing puffs out noisily, as the tiny, pathetic moans work their way from his mouth.

He places his free hand against the wall. His fingers slip against the tile. He closes his eyes tight, imagining Lance’s dazed, loving smile.

He cums so much quicker than he thought that he would. The heat and the pleasure swirl around inside of him, as he cracks open his eyes, presses his weight against his hand on the wall, watches as his mess circles the drain, washing away.

The images of Lance float away with it, replacing that need with shame. Regardless of how insufferable Lance can be from time to time, he really doesn’t deserve this. He’s made it obvious that he doesn’t want a friendship with Keith, and he definitely doesn’t want anything more.

He remembers Shiro telling him about his time with the Galra, about the memories that have plagued him daily since he’d escaped.

 _“There comes a time,”_ Shiro had told him, _“When you just need to be strong enough to let it go.”_

And maybe Shiro was right—about more than memories of imprisonment and torture. Maybe he was even right about stupid, petty crushes that really don’t mean anything compared to what Zarkon is doing to the universe.

Cursing quietly, he straightens himself out, not even bothering to wash his hair before instructing the shower to shut itself off.

This is exactly why emotions are a waste of time. This is the exact reason why he’s always forced himself not to feel anything. He’d spent so many years wondering why the protagonists in so many films had allowed themselves to be foiled by a seductive woman—why so many historical figures had waged war over something as ridiculous as love.

He’d always told himself that he was better than this. He’d always convinced himself, so blindly, that it could never happen to him.

But then… he met Lance.

And the little fucker had to ruin everything.

He gathers his clothes, ignoring the stink of them as he steps into his pants and pulls his shirt over his head.

He’ll worry about that tomorrow. For now, he just wants to sleep this off.

 

* * *

 

Shiro rubs his eyes tiredly, stifling a yawn as Allura fiddles with a few random controls to his left.

They’re standing together in the control room, bathed in the glow of artificial stars, as she skims through Altean text whirring by on the screen before them.

“Rengaron is a fairly reclusive society,” she tells him, eyes glued to the words before her, “My father found it difficult to contact them when he was organizing an intergalactic treaty. For the longest time, we believed that no one inhabited that planet at all.”

He struggles to focus on her words as he takes in the way that the light of the screen plays against her cheeks. Her eyes sparkle, as her lips twitch upward in a sad little smile, and Shiro thinks, for what feels like the hundredth time, that she is absolutely beautiful.

He lets out a long breath, shaking away these intrusive thoughts and looking back to the screen.

“Have they tried to contact us?”

She shakes her head. Beyond the screen, through the front window of the ship, he can barely make out the gaseous, faded purple of a planet far off in the distance, within a halo of stars.

“The distress signal continues, but any attempt to communicate with them has been futile. I—” She stops abruptly, finally tearing her gaze from the glowing letters and frowning down at the floor, “I don’t want to worry you, but… I have a bad feeling about this, Shiro.”

He feels anxiety crawling inside of his chest, constricting his lungs. He thinks about the glowing eyes of aliens in his nightmares, about Allura awakening after ten thousand years to find that her entire race had been eliminated.

He can’t imagine what that might feel like. He isn’t sure if he could be as strong as Allura, in the face of such a tragedy. He feels as though, with just one push from the cold, ugly underbelly of space, he’s already crumbled in on himself beyond repair.

“We’ll have to be careful,” he tells her, willing down the sickness suddenly bubbling inside of him, at the mere thought of leading his team anywhere so dangerous, “We’ll stick together. Everything will be okay.”

She nods, but he doesn’t think that she really believes him. He watches as Rengaron draws nearer, as the other planets pass around them, as they continue to travel deeper and deeper into the black throat of the galaxy.

Allura presses a button, and the text around them disappears. They’re left alone in a darkened control room, watching as an unknown danger lurks closer and closer, and he tries to convince himself that really, everything will be okay.

He reaches out a hand, slowly, nervously, twining their fingers together in the dark. He can’t make out her face clearly, but he likes to think that she smiles.

“I have faith in you,” she tells him, “If you think that it will be okay, then I know that it will.”

He can feel her warmth as she leans into him. He can feel the soft beating of her heart. He watches the universe passing slowly through the window, as a comforting silence settles over them.

He doesn’t want to tell himself that he can do anything with her by his side. He doesn’t want to think that everything will be okay as long as she’s here. He doesn’t want to take her face in his hand, to lean forward in the dark, and look deep into her eyes. And he doesn’t want to be the sort of person who kisses a beautiful woman to quell his own incessant fears.

But in the end, he still does.

 

* * *

 

Shaking the wetness from his hair with one hand, Keith braces himself against the wall with the other. He’s still standing in front of the bathroom, unsure about whether he wants to risk running into anyone on his way back to his room, or just sleep in the training deck like he has for the last few nights.

He’s surprised that no one else has needed to use it, really, but maybe they just know to give him space. Surely, eventually, someone is going to grow tired to him hogging the place and finally kick him out.

It’s just a matter of time, he thinks, before he’s forced to confront everything that he's been so desperately avoiding.

The pain in his back and shoulders protests the mere idea of sleeping on that floor again. The halls are still silent, darkened in all of the places where his presence hasn’t alerted the sensors, so he reasons that it must actually be pretty late at night. Maybe, if he’s sneaky enough, he can slip into his room without worrying about anyone seeing him.

And if Pidge is still awake, he isn’t really that worried about her anyway. She’ll just send him one of those snotty smiles, and he can continue pretending that no one else exists. At the very least, her amusement isn’t as horrible and overwhelming as Shiro’s pity, Hunk’s soft, careful voice, or Lance’s absolute depression.

He groans miserably. It’s really not a good idea to even think about Lance right now.

He tiptoes back to his room, feeling a lot sillier than he imagined that he would when he was planning this. Peeking around every corner, scaling against walls, he tries to tell himself that if anyone caught him like this, they’d know better than to question it. Honestly, they’d probably just assume that he’d lost his mind.

He finally makes it back to the dorm hall, thankfully without any trouble. He winces as the lights come to life with a quiet click. He waits with baited breath for anyone to open their doors to check things out.

Nothing moves. No one comes. He breathes deeply, preparing himself to pounce.

One step around the corner, two careful steps toward his room. He moves gradually, stopping every moment or so to check Lance’s door, just a little ways away from his own. When he comes close enough, he notices something unusual—so unusual that he’s tempted to bolt back to the training deck and call the entire thing off.

There’s a box in front of his door. It’s bright pink, with little hearts drawn in sloppy, purple marker, smudged as though someone had impatiently decorated it. There’s a bow on top, crafted out of what looks like used wires, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out who could have been behind this.

He just can’t understand why Pidge would be leaving something out for him.

Creeping nearer, until he’s finally within reaching distance, he cocks his head to get a better look. The hearts don’t look as though they’ve been drawn by Pidge. They’re not neat enough. It takes him a moment to realize where he recognizes them from, and when he does, it only makes everything more confusing.

He thinks back to the recipes that Hunk had scrawled for him at various points during the mission— _”Promise me, man. When you get home, you’re not just gonna be eating cacti and dead animals. You have to get yourself to a decent grocery store and make yourself a good meal, alright?”_

Hunk has a knack for making even the most mundane things seem charming, like decorating his silly recipes with tiny, messy doodles, and apparently smudging little hearts on weird boxes that Pidge wraps in wire and puts in front of his door.

He bends over, poking the box carefully. There’s a definite weight to it, so it doesn’t budge when he touches it, but it doesn’t explode either, which he figures is a good sign.

Taking one last look down both sides of the hall, he sucks in a breath and lifts the box from the floor. Whatever is inside rattles, but still, it doesn’t explode. Another good sign.

His door hisses open, and he shuffles inside.

He places the box in the center of his bed, and for awhile, it stays there. He paces back and forth, arms crossed over his chest, unsure whether he wants to risk opening a potential prank-gift or just leave the stupid thing on the floor to collect dust. He considers slicing it open with his bayard, but he can’t still the nagging voice, deep inside of himself, that tells him that maybe this is a genuine present, and not some idiotic joke.

But that doesn’t make any sense at all. Of everyone on the ship, why would anyone want to give _him_ a gift?

Time passes, and he can feel himself growing only more exhausted. Maybe that’s why he decides to finally cave and open the box. Maybe that’s why he decides to be such a moron and lower his defenses.

Whatever the reason, he slips the wire off of the edges of the box, slipping his fingers under the tape on the sides and lifting off the paper. He considers folding the paper and the wires and tucking them inside of his memory box, and maybe he will, but for now, whatever is inside of this thing has his full attention.

He fetches his knife from his pillow, cutting open the mess of tape on the box itself. Someone really didn’t want him to be able to open this thing easily. Momentarily, he thinks of Lance, but adding him to the equation only makes things that much more of a headache to figure out.

The flaps of the box lift. He peeks inside.

What he finds, he immediately remembers.

It’s the radio that Pidge had fiddled with for a few days after they’d left Komium, with an old-style cassette taped to the top.

In bold, frustratingly Lance-like handwriting, scrawled over the label, it says:

_'Play Me'_

This is just getting tedious, he thinks, but with a huff, he does as he’s told. He’s too tired to get offended about the fact that even fucking _cassette tapes_ are telling him what to do now, and instead, simply slides the tape into the slot and pushes play.

For a moment, there’s a crackling silence. He wonders if this was all just a strangely intricate plot to waste his time.

Then, so suddenly that it startles him, a twinkling, like tiny bells ringing, begins to play through the speakers.

He reaches forward hurriedly, turning down the volume dial, praying that no one else heard that.

Another sound cracks through the speakers, and he nearly jumps out of his skin. Two voices, obviously Pidge and Hunk attempting to sing in harmony. When he finally calms down enough to understand what they’re saying, his cheeks pool with blood.

_“Anyone, anyone!”_

_“Anyone, anyone!”_

He swallows hard. His fingers tremble against the buttons on the radio.

The following voice, so smooth and reassuring. So much different than the loud, boisterous yowling that he’s grown so used to overhearing in the showers.

It’s Lance.

Oh God, it’s Lance.

_“You can blame me, try to shame me, and still, I’ll care for you.”_

The background music is a little off, sounding as though it’s been manufactured by whatever they had on hand. But Lance’s voice is perfect—calm and loving, with a hint of something so soft and so warm that he can’t help but remember the sweet words that they’d shared on that beach back on Komium. He remembers tangling his fingers in Lance’s hair, pulling him close, kissing him as though he were the only force anchoring Keith to the world.  


_“You can run around, even put me down, still I’ll be there for you.”_  


Keith pulls away, standing rooted to the spot in front of his bed as Lance’s voice carries through the remainder of the song. His throat feels so tight, as his eyes sting with something unfamiliar. His fingers press against his lips, against the smile that he finds there, and before he can stop himself, he laughs.

_“I know, to even let you go. Oh, it’s more than I could ever stand. Oh, but anyone, who knows what love is, will understand.”  
_

He laughs, and laughs, and he thinks about Lance forcing Hunk and Pidge to help him—as their voices singing backup vocals fade gradually from the speakers. He laughs until the tears break free from his eyelashes, until he can barely breathe, until his knees give out underneath him and he’s left struggling to suck in oxygen from the floor.

He wipes the tears from his eyes, smiles so wide that his cheeks ache—harder than he thinks he’s ever smiled in his life.

And he looks over to the wall that connects his and Lance’s rooms. He imagines Lance sleeping soundly, knowing what he’s left here, remembering everything from their night on Komium—loving him, too.

He smiles alone for a long moment, eventually pulling himself off of the floor.

And finally, once he’s regained his bearings, he plays the song again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My computer shut down twice while I was working on this chapter, losing basically all of the edits that I'd made, so... I am suffering. Please understand how much I am suffering. 
> 
> Anyway, despite the fact that editing this took about two hours because of... unfortunate circumstance... I've been super excited about this chapter for some time! Reading Lemon's last chapter only made me more pumped to get it out! I hope you guys liked it!
> 
> See you next time!


	14. You Can Renga My Ron Anytime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who could have possibly predicted that this would happen?

_ When Lance awakens on a bed of soft, red silk, lying among a pile of red roses, amid a heart-shaped cage of dimly burning candles, he rolls his eyes. _

_ He’s not stupid enough not to realize exactly what’s going on. _

_ But the crazy thing—the thing that actually manages to shoot his heart straight up into his throat—is that even as Keith’s figure appears through the murky shadows like a mermaid breaching the dark depths of the sea, even as he creeps closer, shirtless, far more chiseled than Lance thinks that he probably is in real life, he doesn’t wake from this dream. _

_ For a moment, he considers that maybe it’s not a dream at all, but then Keith is drawing nearer, holding him close. He’s whispering things to him that Keith would rather skewer himself with his bayard than actually say out loud, and Lance realizes that adding “lucid sex dreams about Keith” to his growing resume of fucked up gay fantasies has probably been belated for just a little too long. _

_ Now is as good of a time as ever, he supposes, even if this entire experience feels a little too depraved, all things considered. He wonders if he should apologize to Keith when he wakes up. He wonders if it’s considered cheating if you willingly sleep with a dream-doppelganger of your crush before the two of you actually confess your feelings. _

_ Regardless, it’s a little messed up. He can’t deny that. _

_ Keith runs his fingers through Lance’s hair, kissing him gently. There’s the tiniest of smiles tugging at his lips as his long—longer, again, than Lance thinks that they probably are in reality—lashes flutter in the flickering candlelight. _

_ Lance allows himself to be lowered down onto his back. He lets Keith drag wet lips from his mouth down to his throat, to his bare chest and further and further, until he’s finally forced to accept the fact that he’s far more okay with this than he probably should be. _

_ Keith flicks his gaze upward, meeting Lance’s eyes over the dewy, kiss marked expanse of his abdomen and chest—and he tries to ignore the fact that he’s a little more ripped than he knows for a fact that he is in real life. He doesn’t even want to think about what a shrink might say about “dream projection”. He doesn’t even want to consider what horrible, private things this must have to say about his ego. _

_ “Lance,” Keith’s voice dips down into an octave that’s more of a rumble in the air between them than any actual words, but Lance understands it, even as it ripples through him in a thousand tiny tremors, “I want to go all the way tonight.” _

_ He shivers despite the fact that he still hasn’t forgotten that this is a dream. Keith is ghosting a palm over the bulge in his underwear—a terribly revealing little black "something" that he’s definitely never worn in his life. He doesn’t want to consider where the imagery here is even coming from. _

_ “Can I…?” _

_ Dream-Keith is watching him expectantly, leaning in to plant soft kisses against his thighs. The candlelight dances about in the dark pools of his eyes, flecks of light glowing golden against his skin, against those stupid, too-large muscles, against the dip of his spine into his perfectly-sculpted ass. Lance thinks that it must have finally happened: he’s gone totally insane. The stress of these constant epiphanies has caused him to completely lose his mind, and all that he can even focus on is these horrible fantasies about Keith. _

_ Swallowing hard, Lance struggles to convince himself that saying ‘yes’ is supposed to be easier because none of this is real. It feels real, and maybe that’s why he hesitates. Maybe that’s why he allows the nervousness to bubble up inside of him, threatening to break out and wake him from this dream before he manages to figure out why his mind has allowed him to be aware of it in the first place. Surely, there has to be a reason. Surely, his psyche is trying to tell him something. _

_ “I—” Clearing his throat, he drags a hand through his hair, turning his gaze up toward the shadowy ceiling of whichever room this dream is actually taking place in, “I—uh… y-yeah, uh… sure.” _

_ Keith smiles as though Lance’s awkward acceptance would ever be enough for a real person, not existing only in his own depraved imagination. It reminds him a little of playing around with those dinky computer AIs as a kid. How he and his siblings would ask it all sorts of questions and laugh at the bizarre answers. It feels as though this version of Keith will respond in the way that his mind wants him to regardless of what he says, but he doesn’t have the nerve to test it. _

_ Of everything that he’s encountered since starting the Voltron mission, this has to be the most mind-numbing thing that he’s ever experienced. _

_ Somehow. _

_ He can’t dwell on it for too long, however, because Keith is tugging his ridiculous little stringy underwear down below his thighs, and Lance bites his lip to stop himself from protesting. He’s mortified despite everything—no matter how many times he tells himself that none of this is real, that dream-Keith is only his own brain looking at his boner. That dream Keith can't possibly make fun of him unless there's some unspoken part of his own being that unconsciously wants to make fun of his own fucking boners—and if that's the case, he probably has a Hell of a lot more wrong with him than the anxiety of having sex for the first time. Regardless, he can only imagine the real Keith doing this sort of thing, taking him in, looking at him like this with no boundaries protecting him. _

_ He isn’t sure how he’d feel, if it came to that. He isn’t sure if he’d ever be strong enough to let Keith see all of him completely. _

_ His horrified little groans are stilled when Keith leans in and kisses the head of his erection—the traitorous thing, still hard even while his mind is in such turmoil. Both hands drag forward to cover his face, hot against his cheeks. When Keith takes the tip between his lips, he lets out a low, breathy moan. _

_ “F-fuck—I—K-Keith-” _

_ His words are muffled through the heel of his palms. He can barely make out the dots of candlelight through the cage of his fingers. Everything blurs together as Keith’s lips swallow him up—as he falls completely into a deep abyss of pleasure, as it all ends abruptly and Keith is pulling him further forward by the backs of his knees. _

_ There’s a finger wriggling inside of him before he can even regain his composure. The universe tilts, stars dancing before his eyes as that finger hits a spot deep inside of him that has his back arching, his mouth opening up wide in a silent groan, his eyes screwed tightly shut. He feels frozen here: beneath Keith’s expert touch, within the heat of the candles’ flame, in a room fuck-knows where, as an erection that he hopes is far girthier than anything that Keith is actually packing in reality prods between his cheeks. _

_ Then there’s rocking, an indescribable sensation of being full. There’s the ricochet of pleasure throbbing through his veins, the pain of a first time, the artificial sensations that he knows are only in his imagination. Regardless, it feels real now. It feels as though the entire world is finally folding together to make a complete picture; as though his life could be jotted down on a piece of origami paper and bent enough times to actually make any sense at all. _

_ But Keith is here, even if he isn’t the real Keith, and even if none of this actually means anything. Even if it’s just a dream, he finds that he can finally understand what his mind is trying to tell him—what it’s been trying to tell him since he started having these dreams about Keith so many sleepless weeks ago. _

_ Life just doesn’t make sense without Keith anymore. His world, while seeming to be full of meaning and wonder, was a blur of blind ambition, of the want to belong. He’d never lived for anything but the urge to live for something. He’d never had a reason to fight. _

_ He’d always lacked the passion that he’d envied in Keith. He’d never understood how a person could find such deep meaning in the struggle to become better. _

_ But for Keith, no matter how pathetic it might sound to anyone else—maybe Keith is his reason. Maybe Keith is the only thing that makes any of this worth it at all. _

_ Maybe his mind is trying to tell him that he’s a dependent piece of shit. Maybe his brain is warning him not to make a home out of another person. _

_ Maybe he’s putting far too much stock in his dreams altogether. _

_ But dream Keith kisses him gently. He cups his face in warm, calloused hands. And the world melts around him. Nothing else matters but the fire that ignites inside of him with Keith’s gentle kiss. _

_ Keith, a reason to keep moving forward even when everything else seems pointless. Keith, something to hold onto when all else is so wrong. _

_ Keith, someone to love, to cherish, to live for. _

_ A home in the lonely shadows of space. _

 

He awakens slowly, damp with sweat, slick with cum.

A shaking hand combing through his hair, he sighs.

Whatever was in that pink goo, he decides that he needs to never eat it again. It’s really fucking up the only good part of these perverted dreams.

Cursing quietly, he pulls himself out of bed, shoving down his underwear with his pajama pants and wondering if it’s early enough that he can wash them without anyone asking any questions. He hates the idea of wearing his jeans without anything underneath, but it’s not really like he has a choice. The biggest downside of leaving so suddenly was not packing a bag, and he can’t really say that he isn’t mourning the loss of his favorite shirt, surely already thrown out after spending God-knows how long in the dirty clothes bin in his abandoned dorm room at the Garrison.

That train of thought has him suddenly wondering what Keith’s doing now—with his whole underwear situation, given the fact that he’d tossed his only pair out into the water back on Komium, and it doesn’t seem as though he could have managed to collect them in the state that he was in. The thought alone of Keith wandering around commando has his dick twitching eagerly, so for the sake of his sanity, he tries to think about something else.

Like the sound of Keith’s laughter through the walls hours ago. Like the fact that he’d repeated that song on the radio at least a dozen times before falling asleep.

He wishes that he would have asked Pidge to install a camera on the thing—if only so he could have seen Keith’s smile. Surely, it would have been radiant. Surely, it would have been the most exquisite thing that he’d ever seen before.

He grins wryly at his own corniness, wondering how he’s managed to avoid these feelings for so long. They must have been there for forever, really. He must have been feeling this way far longer than he’d been having those dreams.

And he wonders if Keith feels the same—and for how long?

He’s thinking about Keith all the way to the bathroom, even as he drops his dirtied clothes down the laundry chute. Instantly, the timer beeps, signaling that they’ve been cleaned, and he rubs tiredly at his eyes before fetching them and carrying them toward the shower.

He sets his clothes in a neat pile in the corner of the room, stepping forward into the shower and letting out a deep breath as the water begins to beat against his skin.

He thinks about how Keith must have felt opening his gift. He thinks about what he might say when he finally sees him.

And he wonders, as he lathers his hair with shampoo, if there’s really any need to say anything at all.

Time passes gradually, and by the time that Lance’s hair is finally dried and he’s dressed himself in his space suit, ready for another agonizing planetary rescue mission, he can hear the voices of his crew-mates calling out from the dining hall. Rover zooms by as he steps through the threshold of his door, wearing a bright green tiara and wobbling, unstable, in the air.

The foliage of its little crown looked a lot like shamrocks, but he decides that he’s not even going to waste the energy trying to figure out what’s going on.

At least in his armor, he doesn’t have to worry too much about getting pinched.

As he enters the dining hall, he’s assaulted with a myriad of greens where, just yesterday, there had been red and pink hearts. Pidge and Hunk are both wearing glittery top hats, and Lance wonders momentarily where they’re getting all of the supplies for these crafts.

It’s getting a little excessive at this point, he thinks, but hey, they’re having fun.

And, at the very least, they’re not nosing around in his and Keith’s business anymore. That’s all that he can really ask for.

Coran is chatting enthusiastically with Shiro as he takes his seat at the table. Pidge is fastening something sparkly and green to the softer parts of Hunk’s armor. Allura appears to be fiddling with the control panel against the wall, but only Shiro is paying her very much mind—stealing little glimpses of her here and there that he surely thinks that no one else has picked up on yet.

There’s definitely something going on there, but—unlike  _ some people _ (he thinks, while sending Hunk and Pidge a snide little frown)—he’s not going to stick his nose in other people’s business. He’s going to keep it very firmly in place on his own face, in his own business, where it belongs.

In the furthest corner of the room, resting against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest and an expression so morose on his face that one might think that everyone here were his worst enemies instead of his closest friends, is Keith. He’s staring, brows tightly knitted, at the floor. There’s a cute, subtle flush lining his cheeks that definitely isn’t lost on Lance. And if he focuses enough—if he pays the close variety of attention that he’s finally harnessed in order to notice the nuances of Keith’s behavior—he can pick up on the way that Keith’s eyes flick in his direction every moment or so, gauging some sort of reaction, or waiting for the proper moment to strike.

So Lance beats him to the punch.

He rises from the seat that he’s just taken, ignoring the knowing smiles from Pidge and Hunk, ignoring the way that Coran pauses and looks at him curiously, how Allura and Shiro seem to brace themselves for the beginning of another fight.

Keith folds in on himself—sort of. As well as someone like Keith really can. He seems to shirk away, to make himself just a little bit smaller, and if Lance didn’t know any better, he’d think that big, tough, all-mighty Keith Kogane might be a little bit nervous.

Or embarrassed, even. Honestly, he’ll happily take either.

Keith clears his throat as Lance approaches, the color only darkening against his skin. He works a hand through his hair, fumbles with his belt, seems as though he’s intent to do a thousand things before he finally manages to look Lance in the eyes, and Lance waits until the moment that they’re face to face to finally get a taste of that very same nervousness.

It was all fun and games when he was recording the song. He’d felt like the  _ God of Woo-ing _ . He’d felt like Casanova reincarnated. He’d felt as though he could make any entity—human or alien—swoon effortlessly if he’d managed to make Keith Kogane so weak in the knees, but now that he’s seeing him in the flesh, that old insecurity comes flooding back.

Oh, crippling romantic anxiety, his oldest friend.

He and Keith begin to speak at the same time. He starts to ask Keith if he liked his gift, and Keith begins to thank him. They grapple with their questions and statements three or four times, until Keith furrows his brows and looks away in frustration—cheeks burning scarlet at this point—and Lance scuffs his foot against the floor, fingers combing through his hair in embarrassment.

After a few torturous moments drag by, Lance decides that it’s safe to try again, and he opens his mouth, letting out a creaky sort of noise that he imagines is supposed to be some sort of sentence, before slamming his lips shut.

This was so much easier when he’d fantasized about it. He’d simply waltzed over, Keith had thrown himself into his arms. They’d made out a little, maybe. Had a beautiful space-wedding on Rengaron. Lived happily ever after.

Maybe he should have come up with a more realistic plan.

He’s too distracted by the old images of Keith wearing a sparkling, ornate, pearl-white wedding dress, with flowers tucked in the hair behind his ears, mullet in one of those fancy little headband braids that the girls at school used to wear, to realize that Keith has started speaking. He shakes his head a little, ridding himself of those thoughts for now, but promising himself that he’ll revisit them later, at a safer time.

Keith is saying something about how close they’re coming to Rengaron, surely having decided that even mentioning the radio will only cause more awkwardness, when Lance cuts him off. Since he’s taken to just staring dumbly at Keith now, he’s noticed something—a smell, an absence of ugly stains, and his big, stupid mouth can’t stifle the words before he blurts them out.

“Did you finally wash your clothes?”

Keith looks at him for a moment, wide-eyed and surprised.

“U-uh,” he falters, looking down at himself and tugging at the hem of his shirt, “Y-yeah, I uh… I took a shower and washed them after I woke up this morning.”

He feels like an ass for even pointing it out—since everyone else seems determined not to mention the elephant, constantly hanging out in the room, which is Keith’s unusual neglect when it comes to taking care of himself, no matter how easy the ship makes it—so he decides that the only thing left to do now is to commit. He can’t keep stuttering and rambling like a moron. If he’s ever going to get to the part of all of this where they’re having this fucking alien wedding, he needs to learn to yank his foot out of his mouth and pull the conversation in the right direction.

He claps a hand on Keith’s shoulder, startling them both.

“That’s awesome, dude,” he says, smiling, “I always like to see you in the shower.”

That… didn’t come out quite like he was expecting.

Okay, he can fix this.

Keith squints a little, raising a brow and pursing his lips as though he’s about to retort. Their little moment is absolutely, positively demolished, but neither of them have much time to mourn its loss.

The ship begins to tremor, and before anyone can comment, the red warning lights begin to flash. A siren blares, shrill and piercing, and Allura calls for Coran—her voice far more terrified than Lance had ever hoped to hear it.

A holographic screen appears in front of them—a transmission of what’s going on outside of the ship.

Allura is yelling for them to get to their lions. She’s pushing buttons so fast that her hands are nothing but a blur.

Someone is shooting at them on the screen. A fleet of ships is pressing through the darkness of space, surrounding them.

His legs wobble to life. Keith grasps him by the arm, pulling him along.

And the lights go out—shrouding them in darkness. The voices of everyone else around him melt together, muted in his ears. This is bad. This is really, really bad.

“We’re going down!” Someone yells, but he doesn’t know whose voice it is. He can only feel the warmth of Keith’s hand wrapped around his arm.

The ship begins to tumble downward, pulled by an invisible force. 

Further and further toward Rengaron, until finally, they crash through the atmosphere, cushioned among the powdery, ash-black snow blanketing its cliffs.

Everything is dead silent, until a voice crackles to life through the intercom.

_ “You are fooled far too easily,”  _ the voice tells them,  _ “Your kindness will always be the sickness rotting Voltron from the inside out.” _

Maniacal laughter bellows around them, through the darkness, through the thick layer of fear trembling over Lance's skin. 

And he can't move an inch, even as Keith is yelling at him, dragging him through the dark. 

Even as the fleet surrounding the castle begins to open fire.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there! Moth here again, coming at you with a short little "in-between" chapter, since Thanksgiving week has been such a doozy for both of us. 
> 
>  
> 
> I'm so sorry for the cliffhanger (I'm not, of course, but I feel like you know the drill by now), but I promise that Lemon's chapter next week will more than make up for it!
> 
>  
> 
> Until then, I hope you guys have a good week!


	15. Keith, That's Kinda Gay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance literally chokes on air, not at all prepared for the conversation to escalate so quickly from there. “I...did you seriously just ask me what my _thoughts_ on _you_ giving me a _blowjob_ by the deadly bars of this _prison cell_ would be?!”
> 
> aka "Over 100k in, and they finally do the thing".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> minor warning for ptsd flashback in this

 

Keith doesn’t exactly know where he’s going as thick clouds of smog envelope all the windows of the castle and seep under every crack inside, filling the ship with a strange, swirling black mist. What he does know is that Lance is still behind him, and that’s all the reassurance he needs to think fast and act on his instinct to go towards the direction of his hangar, where he can faintly feel Red calling to him, directing him through the smoke.

Lance is mumbling disjointed, panicked words, something or other about sticking together, about waiting for everyone to catch up to them. Keith wants to tell him it isn’t entirely pragmatic to move in groups like that, that everyone can definitely hold their own if need be as a team, but he’s pretty sure Lance isn’t in a rational enough state of mind at the moment to heed his words. So Keith pulls him along even as he protests, as he babbles on about going back to assist them.

He can hear the mysterious fleet outside firing shots, the blaring of the alarms, and the smoke is rising to more dangerous levels and starting to take on this strange, bitter scent to it. It’s leaving him a bit lightheaded and dizzy, so once they get around a corner where he recognizes is near to the hangars, Keith flings Lance towards the wall.

Pushing him up against it, Keith silences him with a finger, peering in both directions down the halls. After confirming the enemies are probably still making their way inside as everything is empty besides the fog, Keith presses the button on Lance’s helmet that activates it to its completely closed position.

“Keep your visor up, dude.”

Keith hurriedly unzips one of the packs on his hip and pulls out his bandana, ties it tight to cover over his nose and mouth while tucking the open end into the collar of his jacket as he zips it up tight. He breathes as deeply as he can through the cloth, and the vertigo slightly subsides, but he knows it’s more of a band aid than anything for the time being.

Stupid--he’s so stupid. The one time he chooses to clean up to impress Lance, just so happens to be the one time they get unexpectedly attacked by mysterious aliens while he’s not in his suit. Go fucking figure.

“I have no clue what’s in that mist stuff, but I’m feeling a little funny, so best to be on the safe side.”

Blearily, Lance stares at him, head lolling a bit. His eyes are bloodshot and glazed over. Shaking his head, he gives him a weak thumbs up, inhaling sharply and sighing in relief as freshly filtered, oxygenated air fills his lungs. He takes a few, evenly tapered breaths, and after the engorged vessels in his eyes start dissipating, he goes right back to his panicking.

“But we’ve gotta go back, Keith. They’re probably wondering where we went, we can’t just leave them like this when they need us, we’ve got to--”

Keith frowns. They’re going to need to get past this, and fast.

“Look, look, just calm down.” He steadies Lance with his palms over his arms, rubbing them up and down until Lance is soothed enough to quit talking. “I’ve got a plan. It’s kind of reckless, yeah, but I think in this case reckless is best. An ambush isn’t predictable, so we have to be equally as unpredictable towards these bastards since we don’t even know what we’re up against. Everyone else will be all right, they can more than handle themselves together or even in paired off teams like us. This also makes it harder for whoever this is to capture us in one go. Like that time when the castle got attacked by the Galra and Pidge running off and thinking quick saved us all, remember that?”

“B-but I, but you---splitting up then originally ended up making things worse and I--everyone--but what if they--what if _we_ \--”

Lance continues giving him this wide-eyed, uncertain stare, so Keith makes an executive decision to take his hand, giving it a rough squeeze as he yanks him forward, trying to ignore the thoughts that infiltrate his mind at the touch. Smiling before he starts dragging him down the rest of the path with their fingers firmly interlocked, he calls back over his shoulder.

“Just shut up and trust me, okay?”

 

* * *

 

 

 

There’s something--something about the black fog that settles over them that grips Shiro’s heart with a fear that is undeniably familiar to him. A fear that he usually wakes with after dreams tainted with the wailing screams of prisoners, with the laughter and jeering of a collective of grating, cruel voices. A fear that leaves his sheets soaked with sweat, his mind scrambling to catch up with what he’s even so afraid of when he realizes he’s safe on the ship, safe in a bed far, far away from that prison cell.

And yet, at the most inopportune of times, he can’t help but freeze at the blaring sirens, at the shooting of so many firearms that he can’t see that sound as if they’re right beside him. He’s almost paralyzed, he thinks, palm slick with sweat. He’s barely able to gather enough of his wits about him to force his robotic arm to move.

Slashing erratically at the fog, he tries calling out to his fellow paladins, to Allura, but his tongue is so fat and dry in his mouth it’s impossible to tell if what tumbles out is coherent language or not. His heart rate is a jumpy, staccato rhythm as loud in his ears as that laughter that he knows so well, of the cries of others and the panic that rises every time he finds himself cornered like this.

“Shiro!”

It’s Allura, he assumes, that comes into a blurry focus near him, shouting something indecipherable. It’s then Shiro realizes he can’t really breathe, gripped with the irrationality that he’s choking on whatever poison they’ve been bombarded with. To him, the smoke looks like the tendrils of creatures so awful and horrible they should never see the light of day, the shapes of monsters that haunt even his waking moments. Something tumbles from his mouth, but it isn’t words, just one long, strangled cry as the monsters snake around him, ensnare him into a tightly bound trap. They’re in his mouth, crawling across his skin through his armour somehow, inside the nooks of the metal of his arm, in his ears--

“ _Shiro_!”

It _is_ Allura, he’d recognize the soothing edge in the tone of her voice anywhere, like bathing in a hot spring with cherry blossoms cascading across a sunset, rich and warm and comforting. There’s a weight on his shoulders, eyes like clear pools of tropical waters through the dusk.

She’s much taller than usual, he notes.

“Shiro, stay with me here, we need you. Please, please, say something if you can understand me.”

Words, right, words. He can do that, he can speak around the swell of his tongue, no problem.

Or--

“I-I can’t--” He stutters, shaking in her hold. “No, can’t, where am I...I c-can’t--”

Allura becomes clearer now, holding his face tightly, grounding him. She’s clearly worried, but she’s putting on this thin lipped smile - to help him, he realizes.

Beneath him, is cool, solid, white and blue tile, which at some point he must have decided to sit on. Altean interior design, Altean ship. He pats the ground with his metal palm, relief setting through him when he hears the clanging, feels the soft pads of Allura’s fingers inching over the pallor and dampness of cold sweat that lines his cheeks.

It’s real, this is real, even in the chaos of things. The people he cares about are right here with him. There are no demonic like monsters infiltrating his insides, the laughter in his skull is actually more muted laughter from the enemy still outside, only seemingly louder as they must be projected on a screen somewhere. The smoke is making visibility difficult, so he knows, at the back of the staggering recesses of his mind he has to warn them all of what danger actually lurks there, a danger he’s frustratingly having trouble recalling the word for.

“You _can_ , Shiro,” Allura says bluntly, but her tone is loving, soothing. “You’ve done it before. It’s going to be alright, we can get through this. You’re okay, Shiro, and you’re going to continue to be okay. You’re here with me, with _us_ , alright?”

Her hands drift back to his shoulders, kneading at the tension that’s settled there. The real voice of reason is her smile, perfectly aligned in front of him, so he focuses on that, follows the movements of her lips as the physical fog around them lifts at about the same time it does from the edges of his mind.

“...Pidge and Hunk are holding off and investigating the unidentified fleets with their lions while Coran is tinkering with the particle barrier and scanning the database for solutions to get rid of this smog,” her eyes flit to the receding smoke and then towards a distant, gingerish, blue figure in the distance, “which it seems like he just figured out. Continue keeping your visor up, and you’ll be fine, I--”

She glances to the side to hide the knit, worry laced frown that Shiro already knows is sitting there.

“Keith and Lance are...I assume they’ve gone to their hangars in preparation, so I’m sure they’re fine too. I know it’s hard for you right now, but you can do this. You can get to your lion as well and form Voltron, as you always do, because you’re _you_ , and you’re strong.”

That’s right, he _has_ done this before. Through the fear he’s done this, through the panic and the images that spin quickly past him like the reel of the world’s worst film across his eyelids. She’s right.

Allura is perfectly visible before him, like a beacon of the fairest light in so much murky darkness and dregs of shit.

Everything starts clicking back into place -- the sounds, the sights, the smells, that _smoke_ , all familiar - familiar, so horribly fucking familiar. He grapples for her arms, squeezes them maybe tighter than he means to in his remaining undercurrent of panic.

“Galra!” He practically yells, and Allura’s eyes stretch wide, though it probably isn’t so much surprise as it is despondency.

“It’s Galra, they’re Galra, we’ve got to get out of here, _now_.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Fuck,” Keith hisses beside him as they crouch in the shadows around the corner, “Fuck, Fuck, Fuck.”

Lance can’t help but completely agree with that sentiment. After Keith had been about to more thoroughly explain his plan, which had something or other to do with obtaining their lions in the process, they found themselves here - at the exit to Keith’s hangar, obviously surrounded by Galra sentries, which must have infiltrated from some spot beneath the castle.

He doesn’t think it’s entirely a huge surprise - when he’d tried to sense Blue, the only thing she’d done was send him a sharp warning to stick with Keith and not worry about her. In the thick of the commotion, Lance hadn’t gotten a chance to share that with Keith, as they’d been heading to Red first since she’d been the step one in his mysterious plan.

“Is she talking to you, man?” Lance whispers, holding his bayard steady in front of him in case the sentries notice their presence, which is bound to happen eventually as more and more filter in from god knows where. More disconcertingly, there are two live Galra soldiers in the midst of it, barking commands and surveying Red, who’s stark still. Keith tenses beside him when one of them prods her paws with a strange looking flashing object.

“...No. She’s afraid they might sense it somehow. I can...I can feel the fear on her.”

The pain, the distress filters through so clear in his voice that Lance doesn’t even want to think about how Blue is probably being subjected to the same treatment right then. Body on high alert, brain working overdrive as he searches for any way out of this, Lance’s eyes flicker to the walls higher up above Red, where not so long ago he once peered down from in a tunnel no one probably knew existed…

“Keith, don’t worry. I’ve got a new plan. I think we can get out of here.”

Keith turns to him, easing up slightly on the white knuckled clasp he has on his knife. “What is it? Tell me.”

“Okay, I know this might sound crazy, but...there’s...they’re are secret tunnels that our lions can create and have access to in the castle. I...accidentally discovered this the other day, I’ll tell you more about it later. But there’s one that opens up right above Red.” He points up and Keith follows the arch of his arm, thankfully not saying a questioning word. “If we can get to the top of Red, I’m sure she can let us through it. If my assumptions are correct, she might even be able to have it directly lead us off the ship, and it’ll seal right behind us before anyone can follow.”

Keith glances back and forth between Red and where Lance showed him the tunnel opening should be, then nods. “Alright, let’s do it. You do know we’ll have to reveal ourselves though, right? I mean, that’s part of the plan, I assume.”

Lance flashes him a thumbs up. “Yup, I got you buddy. I blast farther off ranks while you handle close combat?”

Keith laughs as they both straighten up and prepare to step out into the open. “Naturally. You suck at close combat.”

Right before they part from the shadows, Lance places a hand on Keith’s arm and rubs it gently, making him pause mid stride. “Hey...just...be careful out there, alright? I’ll cover you, but don’t...get yourself killed or anything stupid like that, or I swear, I’ll bring your ass back from the dead or harass you forever in the afterlife. Maybe both somehow.”

Keith looks taken aback, but then his features soften, and the bandana obstructing his view doesn’t keep Lance from envisioning that trademark, dimpled smile. He flips the knife between his fingers a few times, the cute showoff. “Ah, while I don’t doubt that, you worry too much. I’ve got this.” He lets his free hand clap Lance on the back, and Lance swears he can feel the warmth of it through his armor. “ _We’ve_ got this.”

To Lance’s complete and utter shock, he blows him a _goddamn kiss_ , and with that, in true Keith fashion, he’s bounding into the thick of the conflict without a second thought or breath of hesitation.

“Hey, dickmunchers!” Keith yells, bouncing into a fighting stance and holding his knife above his head, looking instantly like the badass samurai Lance often likens him to in battles.  He beckons them with his open hand as every robotic head in the room turns to him. “Which one of you wants a piece of me first?”

The next few seconds - minutes, hours, whatever - are a blur of colors and shrapnel and explosions, of the smell of burnt metal and the clatter of sentry after sentry dropping around them. Over the din of all this, rises the pissed off voices of the Galra, who always seem about two steps behind them as Lance backfires towards the wall of sentries, using them as barrel-type shields, keeping them rolling towards the soldiers and piling up an impressive mountainous barrier to ward them off.

Fighting through the thick of the crowd had been the more daunting task, as Keith not having his armor made Lance extra on edge, but he flows through the enemies like wildfire, a killer flame licking mercilessly hot and wild, covering everything in his path until there’s nothing but scorched remains behind.

What he doesn’t gut or decapitate with his knife, he’s toppling over with fancy kicks and punches, destroying all of them before they so much as get a chance to raise a weapon. There’s only a few narrow moments where he gets too cocky, cocky enough to shoot Lance a smug smile, one in which Lance has to blow off the head of a sentry that’s crept much too close for comfort behind Keith's back, but Keith doesn’t notice and Lance lets him take that imagined victory in his hurry to knock the rest of them back. By the time they get to Red, the room is a veritable mess of extraneous twitching severed limbs and sizzling wires.

After shooting away the last of them, leaving only the two stunned Galra, Lance shimmies first across Red's paw and then swings up her leg with all the practiced ease of someone who constantly has to scale up and down their own unruly lion, of someone who used to always climb trees as a child to escape from the reprimanding duties of his mother and to have a bit of peace from his rowdy house of siblings.

Once he reaches Red’s shoulder, Keith balanced below still on her paw, he straddles over her panel and raises his bayard to keep the Galra at bay, eyes locked on them while he proffers a hand blindly towards Keith.

For the first time since they began fighting, after all the danger and tumultuousness they’ve already faced, for some inane reason, Keith  _hesitates_.

“Yo, what the hell are you doing down there, Samurai?” Lance glances down, sweating and breathing more heavily when that split second he loses his concentration and flicks his gaze back up, one Galra has advanced several hundred feet. “You can reach my hand, can’t you?”

“I, uh…” Keith’s tone is uncertain, lacking all the confidence he’d been boasting only seconds before as he whooped insults while whooping ass. “It’s cool, I’ll...get up on my own.”

“Keith, quit being a dork and just grab my hand, come on! _Fuck_!”

Lance dodges one of the lasers fired by the second Galra, whom he hadn’t noticed creeping from beside them, and scrambles quickly to Red’s nose in order to get a clearer shot of them both. He only manages to graze the shoulder of the other, who doesn’t seem very deterred by it enough to stop advancing. There must have been something in whatever the Galra prodded Red with earlier, because she isn’t moving, isn’t attempting to help them, making his plan possibly impossible. He really doesn’t want to think of what they’ll have to do if that doesn’t work. Lance can barely contain the full-fledged panic that returns, that hits him hard at the center of his chest.

“Please, Keith,” Lance pleads, “Get a running start, jump, and I’ll catch you, okay?”

“No,” Keith groans, face in his hands, and Lance is one step away from jumping back down there and carrying him up and into the tunnel bridal style. Keith is pressing against the bandana over his mouth, as if trying to suppress himself from saying something other than being a difficult fuck. “No, no, no, fuck.”

“Keith, buddy, you have to, they’re--” The two Galra are approaching faster now without the sentry bodies flying at them, weapons menacingly aimed in their direction and shouting things Lance could care less about. “They’re going to be here soon, what is your deal?”

Keith flaps his arms frantically in front of him. “No, I can’t!”

Losing his patience entirely, Lance splays his arms wide, perfectly balanced on the tip of Red’s nose, and yells with all the venom he can muster, “Why the fuck not?!”

Keith has the nerve to glare at him, and then he belligerently shouts something so unexpected, Lance is sure he’s going back into shock.

“Because every time I grab your hand, I can’t stop thinking about how you touched yourself to me, which I accidentally walked in on the other night!”

Lance reels back, almost falling off completely if not for his quick reflexes to catch himself. Still, he lowers himself into a sitting position slowly, momentarily forgetting the fact two guards are coming towards them, momentarily forgetting the fact they’re probably cornered and fucked either way, because _holy fucking shit_ there’s no way he heard that right _._ Keith couldn’t have seen...how would he have seen _that_?

“W-what? You _what?_ ”

Keith staggers back himself, hand clapping over his mouth, looking about 100 different shades of mortified. “No, no, no, oh god, why did I say that?! What the hell was in that mist stuff, oh fuck. No, not now, this isn’t important--”

Keith ducks as one of the soldiers throws a punch towards him, managing to do an impressive backflip to dodge the fire of the other’s gun right afterwards. Lance aims his bayard at them in fury for daring to go for such a cheap shot, somehow containing the shake of his hands enough to blast the two until they retreat from attacking Keith. As the smoke clears, Keith comes more into view again, redder than Lance has ever seen him before.

“I’m so sorry, Lance, fuck, but I...that’s why, that’s why I’ve been…”

Watching the staggering Galra from his peripheral, Lance crouches to his hands and knees, motioning with his hand for Keith to hurry up, priding himself on the fact he’s still able to keep it mildly together after such a jarring confession. “I cannot believe you...well, had the balls to do that, I’m mildly impressed as much as I am embarrassed...also, this is...really not the time, but what the fuck, how _did_ you even do that without me noticing, I--”

“I may have, um, may have stayed until you were distracted and, uh, loud enough you wouldn’t hear the closing of the door,” Keith admits, climbing towards him, but still blatantly refusing to take hold of the hand Lance continues to offer.

 _"What_?” Lance squawks, completely forgetting why they climbed up on top of Red in the first place, completely forgetting the plan, completely forgetting the figures threatening them and drawing nearer again. “You did--I--what, what, _what_?”

“I didn’t want you to see me, I didn’t want to disturb you in the middle of it, so I--”

“So you just stayed and fucking _watched me_?!”

“Yeah, but I swear it was...I was trying to be polite!”

Lance cannot believe this. He’s not so much as riled as his words sound as he is mostly embarrassed and severely disappointed. A guy thinks he has privacy on a big ass ship, and then he finds out something like this happens. On top of that, the bigger issue is that he wouldn’t have minded Keith watching him do _that_ ! But without the fun of knowing he was _there_? What a rip-off. Honestly, why is nothing easy for him anymore?

“Be polite?” Lance scoffs incredulously. “Be _polite_? You could have just come in, you weirdo! How was only watching me more polite when you could have gotten in on the action!”

“I, uh…wait. Let me get this straight.” Now poised on top of Red beside him, Keith furrows his brows, tapping a hand to his forehead before he flips a palm out to him. “ _That’s_ what you’re mad about?”

Lance eyes Keith critically, observing the equally as embarrassed flush of his cheeks. “You were concerned about being polite while you watched me jerk it, and then you didn’t even offer to help,” he states bitterly, not so much a question as it is a summary of what apparently goes on in the bizarre, inner-workings of Keith’s mind.

“Well, yeah, but I--”

Rudely, a harsh voice interrupts them. “Humans, surrender your weapons or we’ll--”

“Shut the fuck up!” Both Lance and Keith shout in unison down to the Galra, who Lance thinks might be about as confused as he is.

“Yeah, can’t you see we’re trying to work through something here?” Lance places a hand on his hip. The Galra are so caught off guard they actually pause to stare at them.

“Uh, um...” One of them - the smaller and stockier of the two - says, exchanging a glance with the other as they scratch their head. “Well…”  

His partner smacks him on the back for even daring to hesitate in response, and raises his weapon back at them.

“How dare you fucking speak to us like that, you little brats, we will destroy you and all--”

Keith fumes beside him, tightening his grip on his knife and raising it. He slices it so fast through the air Lance almost misses how it slides seamlessly between his fingers and then slips from them, whizzing in a perfect arc towards the Galra - the bigger one, who has this stupidly curled, pointy hairstyle - where it lands a direct hit, right at the weak point between stomach and chest armour. It’s an impressive shot from such a distance, to say the least.

“You heard him, fuckface, didn’t you? We’re busy, so fuck off!”

While the other Galra frantically attempts to assist his partner as he falls to his knees, cursing them and groaning in pain, they’re spared a few more moments to address...whatever this is.

A thought strikes Lance then as he realizes what brought this about during such an inopportune time. The mist, right, Keith mentioned that. The weird feeling it settled in the pit of his own stomach earlier, the odd need on the tip of his tongue still to tell Keith all sorts of things not appropriate for the moment he’d been trying to ignore -- there must be a kind of truth serum in it, probably for the purposes of some stupid interrogation method or type of complacency. And obviously, without his helmet, Keith had gotten the full brunt of the dose.

“Nice one, Keith. Also, that was pretty hot.”

Okay, so maybe he wasn’t as unaffected by the smog as he thought.

“Ah, thanks.”

Keith turns to face him, grinning. It falls into a pensive frown as soon as he realizes they need to approach the elephant in the room again. A few times, like earlier, they fumble to speak over each other, until Keith firmly cuts him off.

“Lance, look, I’m sorry, really. I came to your room to apologize for being a dick, but it was totally pervy and creepy of me to stay after I saw what you were doing, er... _without_ offering to join you?”

He quirks an eyebrow towards Lance, and Lance nods in a huff, adding a curt, “ _Or_ telling me you were there so I could give you a better show.”

Keith’s flush stretches to the tips of his ears. “Or, uh, _that_...and if I could take it back, and do it over by...joining you or announcing my presence, I guess? I would, but...but…”

“But..?” Lance prompts, because he’s not sure anything good can come after that.

Keith pushes out a breath so violently his bangs fluff up practically in a whirlwind around him.

“But I, god, fuck this Galra mist, dude. Alright, okay, whatever, might as well utilize this shit because it’s been killing me for a long time anyway. I was...gonna say, ‘but I want you to know that I’ve been jerking off to you for a long ass time now, if that makes you feel any better’.”

“That…” Lance raises a finger, about to jab it into Keith’s chest and chew him out more for not making his presence known, or at the very least, not offering to join in on his fun the other night, until his brain slowly processes the full weight of his words. His breath hitches as he stares at Keith.

“You...you know what? It actually _does_.”

“Yeah?” Keith perks up, a little more breathless than usual.

Lance steps closer to him, unsure what he’s planning to do, though his feet seem to have clear ideas of their own. Keith is moving tentatively to him as well, but then Red is purring something beneath them that has him pausing and his eyes stretching wider. Hearing the rumble of something above him, Lance looks up, relieved for once to see that creepy ass tunnel.

Keith has no qualms about grabbing Lance’s hand this time and dragging him to their original destination, but before they can reach the top entrance to the hall, something small and sharp harshly pricks the back of Lance’s neck. Veins instantly thrumming hot everywhere on his body, he’s swooning before he hits the ground, world quickly fading to black along with the panicked sounds of Keith calling to him in the distance.

 

* * *

 

“ _You all can rot in here for eternity, for all we care_ ”, is the first thing Lance hears when he comes to again, pulling himself up on the nearest solid object from some cold, grimy floor as the view of a dingy cell comes into blurry view. He shakes his head to rid himself of the clammy sensation crawling across his skin, of the brief lightheadedness he gets when he rises. Keith is awake, standing near a crackling, purple lazer looking set of bars a few feet in front of him, saying some profane thing about how the Galra guard can go eat a bag of dicks.

The Galra does something out of Lance’s line of vision that has Keith crying out, staggering back to him. The red that Lance sees hearing his pained cry only further blinds his vision, though he scrambles enough towards Keith to be able to steady him before he falls. Oh, he is _so_ going to be out for Galra blood after this, and that idiot is going to be the first on his hit list.

“We’ll be back to deal with you when we’ve made the necessary preparations.” Lance’s vision is starting to clear right as the Galra - whom he recognizes as the one that Keith stabbed earlier - flicks his beady eyes to him. “You. Keep your mouthy little friend here in check, he’ll end up being your one way ticket to long, excruciatingly painful torture before we kill you later if he doesn’t shut up.”

“Your hair is fucking stupid, you look like [Jim Carrey](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/08/21/16/2B8EA03100000578-3206236-Carrey-m-31_1440171487187.jpg) in that one [Ace Ventura movie](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/600x315/5f/af/f8/5faff8b7e1aa8b6e16ccca7ebf82e349.jpg), asshole!” Keith yells weakly, clutching his gut as Lance helps him down on a worn bench. Luckily the guard is already out of earshot when he says it, stomping off down the hall in a rush to do whatever evil, shitty things Galra do in their free time.

Lance is on Keith in a second, hands frantically roving over his body, hoping he won’t find an open wound that needs staunching.

“Are you hurt? Did they do anything to you while I was out? Can you stand? Are you bleeding? Can you--”

He’s lifting up his shirt to inspect his torso when Keith smacks him away.

“Don’t touch me, okay, god, I can’t take the feel of your hands on my--” Keith freezes, clamping his mouth shut before he can admit something probably less than innocent. “Don’t...just don’t touch me right now, please. I’m fine, he zapped me with some bitch-ass taser thing, but it didn’t really hurt that bad since it was the third time he did it. He was only being pissy cause his lame ‘human knockout drugs’ didn’t really have much of an effect on me and I’ve been hassling him non-stop for like, I don’t know, the past half-hour since you’ve been asleep, I think.”

Dejected, Lance falls away from him. “Yeesh, well soo- _rry_ for caring about your well-being.”

Keith turns his head, lip pushing into a pout. “It’s not like anyone asked you to, so don’t worry about it.”

Lance frowns, rubbing his neck and thumbing over the small puncture wound there, which is incredibly tender and itchy.

“Y’know, I don’t know what the hell _you’re_ so mad about, _you_ jacked off to me _first_ , apparently,” Lance huffs, crossing his arms as he slumps against the wall.

“Yeah, well,” Keith hisses through the tight clench of teeth, “You...you jerked off to me _second_...”

The muted, uncreative response catches Lance off-guard at first, until he realizes Keith is probably acting this way because he’s embarrassed by his confession, which would have Lance’s head floating higher above the clouds if he wasn’t so preoccupied by a myriad of troubling emotions right then.

Keith is curling himself up into a defensive ball in the corner as far as he can be from him physically, face remaining as flushed red as the lines of his jacket. He’s twirling a lock of his hair around his finger, repeatedly wrapping and unwrapping a good chunk upon it - up and down, up and down, Lance bobs his head along with his movements until it makes him slightly dizzy and he has to look away.

Lance sighs loudly, but no longer in irritation, really, just exasperation. Here they are - trapped in this cell, being held by the Galra, the rest of the team is god knows where and who knows what fate will befall them in the end, and all Lance’s muddled brain can focus on in between thinking of plans that might get them out of there are images of a lewd Keith desperately touching himself and calling out his name in the heat of the moment. Great.

Defender of the Universe? Lance wants to laugh. He’s only a stupid kid. He has never been, and never will be, a defender of anything but the people closest to him. He honestly can’t do this, will probably never be able to properly do this -- to step up to the responsibility it takes to be a pragmatic leader that leaves his illogical emotions behind for the sake of the greater good, for the entire universe of people out there that have others who care about them like he cares about his own friends and family.

He can’t let those connections go so easily, and -- staring back at Keith, watching the jerky jittering of his hand play with his hair anxiously -- he’s only relieved in the fact that he knows he isn’t the only one of them to share this sentiment.

“...I guess you got me there, buddy,” he says softly, scooching a little closer to Keith on the bench.

Lance relents defeat, because why not. He doesn’t see the point in arguing. It’s not like Keith planned to barge in on him during one of his most private moments, and to be honest, he really doesn’t have much room to talk after seeing Keith’s venting session with Red and then rummaging around through his stuff.

Besides…

Flicking his attention to his feet and shuffling them as worry creeps up the back of his neck, seemingly amplifying the ache there, Lance supposes none of that matters here.

Silence stretches between them for a few minutes. Keith is making these intermittent, strangled sort of noises in the wake of it, and when Lance turns his attention back to him, his face is looking more blue tinged and strained. He’s biting his nails, eyes darting around distractedly, and Lance slides over more.

“Hey...are you sure you’re alright?”

Another hiss of breath, another staggering whimper, and then Keith is blurting out, “Honestly, if we weren’t in danger here, I’d like to pin you up against the wall over there and jerk you off until all I could hear were your screams echoing everywhere. So no, I’m not really alright.”

Lance moves back to where he had been so fast the seat of his suit chafes him. Oh, fuck. Oh, no. He did _not_ just say that.

“W-whoah. Uh. That wasn’t, uh. Wasn’t what I was expecting you to say, like, at all.”

Keith threads his fingers into his hair, pulling on the strands as he curses profusely before responding. “Your, your moans are so nice, I can’t get them out of head, and I bet they’d sound even prettier echoing through the--shit, shit, shit! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I’m saying these things, but it’s true and my stupid mouth won’t stop forming words.” Keith brings wildly trembling fingers to his lips, scowling deeply at them over the bridge of his nose. “Damn it, how long does this stuff last?”

Lance is positive his jaw is hitting the floor at that point. Numbly, he pinches himself as hard as he can. When the pain shoots up his arm, he still is having trouble comprehending that this isn’t another tantalizingly sexy dream.

“K-Keith.” Lance inhales sharply, exhales slowly to steady his increasingly more ragged breathing while digging his fingers into his thighs, restraint so thin and fragile it might as well be the walls of a house held together by pieces of tape. “You are...god, you _really_ need to take a deep breath and...and stop talking...”

Keith isn’t listening to him, gaze oddly drawn to what they’re sitting on. Casually, he begins to speak like he’s discussing certain food that he likes. “Okay, but as long as we’re already on the topic, imagine it, Lance. I could bend you over this bench, too, if you preferred a different angle. It looks pretty sturdy.”

“Keith, jesus fucking--”

“What?” Keith says tersely, crossing his arms. “Don’t act...don’t act like you aren’t thinking about it!”  

He wasn’t going there for once, but he definitely is considering it when Keith actually fucking _knocks_ on the bench, nodding proudly when the sound reverberates in a deep pitch, indicating the lack of a hollow middle. Keith side eyes Lance, who is about two seconds away from jumping out of his own skin in order to escape from the ever present suggestion hanging over them, from the sexual tension so high and out in the open he isn’t sure what to do with it anymore.

“It’s solid, so you’d be okay. And chill out, I’m just saying hypothetically, y’know. Obviously that would be super inappropriate to do…” Keith pauses, breath hitching in this funny way before he adds more quietly, “... _here_...”

Damn it. God, how Lance wishes he wasn’t right.

Keith wrings his hands together, then smooths over every non-existent wrinkle of his shirt. He clears his throat. “Don’t...blame me for wanting to pass the time with some idle chat!”

Lance takes his helmet off and sets it down beside him carefully, hoping it might do something to help cool off his face. “Yeah, and that’s cool, I get that, but is this _really_ the topic we need to talk about, right _here_ , right  _now_?”

Keith makes a disgruntled noise, tapping his fingers on the bench and turning more towards Lance to get a better look at him. “...Why the hell not? Is this not something you’d be interested in?”

“That’s true, it...is…” Lance breathes, forgetting to say the ‘but’ afterwards that he meant to add in protest and nodding his head so vigorously he doesn’t have time to second-guess what agreeing to that might have done to make this situation worse. Keith shoots him a coy grin.

“Great. That’s good.” And right as Lance thinks he may be about to drop this whole thing, Keith continues. “So, if we’re being honest and shit, what are your thoughts on being sucked off near the bars? Would the added danger of that do anything for you, or is that like, completely crossing a line?”

Lance literally chokes on air, not at all prepared for the conversation to escalate so quickly from there. “I...did you seriously just ask me what my _thoughts_ on  _you_ giving me a _blowjob_ by the deadly bars of this _prison cell_ would be?!”

Keith eases his hands out in front of him, turning away fast and rubbing one held up palm over the back of his neck. “Nevermind, it was a joke, I’m k-kidding! I’m only, uh, teasing you. Forget I-I said that.”

The way he says it slowly with a nervous stutter, like it’s hard for him to deny that through the thick of whatever truth serum is still rushing through his veins, isn’t helping to reassure Lance that that’s entirely, well, true. Thankfully, Keith shuts up for a second, right on time for Lance to try and steer his thoughts away from the potential blowjob offer, because dammit, they’re both so going to hell. He would _totally_ be up for doing that, no questions asked.

He’s eyeing the bars curiously, almost about to suggest they do it anyway, when he thinks about how Shiro would be so disappointed if he somehow found out they dared do such a thing, even if it was partially for the purpose of giving a giant middle finger to the Galra. He’s had more than enough weird interactions to last him a lifetime with Shiro and everyone else as of late, and luckily his desire to not have to keep going through that awkwardness and humiliation is enough to stop that train of thought.

Unfortunately, it _doesn’t_ erase the damage Keith’s candid words have already done and are currently wreaking havoc on in his poor brain.

All this time, Keith must have been thinking these things, and he didn’t even seem to see anything strange about any of it. Lance can’t wrap his head around it. Doesn’t he understand the gravity of what he’s telling him? Of what it _means_? How can he act so casual about all this? Lance doesn’t know how else to respond anymore, so he inarticulately says the only descriptive thing he can think of off the top of his head.

“But Keith, you know, this is all so...” Lance exclaims, jumping to his feet in an attempt at emphasis in front of him, as if that might help make his next words less dumb. “That’s...that’s gay, dude.”

Keith stares like he doesn’t understand, head cocked innocently. He shrugs, and Lance gets an intense urge to shake him.

“That’s really, really gay!”

“Well, uh, yeah, I guess so, though uh...the same could be said for you, couldn’t it?”

Keith glances between the crooks of the bars, fiddles with his gloves. He kicks at one of the small pieces of rubble, and Lance watches as it ricochets out of the room. Despite the disconcerting force he puts into that, the features of his face are relaxed enough to suggest he at least seems relieved to get that bit of brutal honesty off his chest.

“Anyway, I thought that much was obvious, considering I’ve been jerking off to you for like, years. You really...didn’t notice? I sort of thought that’s why you didn’t want to hang out with me, I didn’t think I was _that_ good at hiding how I felt.”

 

Lance gapes at him, shaking his head softly.

 

“Oh,” Keith hums, staring up and watching him with flickering, calculating eyes. He falls silent.

 

Lance’s legs feel weak, and he’s sure it isn’t from some side effect of being drugged. It feels like his whole world is being turned upside down, like the ground beneath him is being yanked out from under his feet. Lance sits back down numbly, unable to keep from looking at Keith, then at the ground, then back to Keith, trying to get a grip on the situation.

 

This really isn’t the time, he thinks. They should be calculating a plan, coming up with a way to escape. But as it is, their options seem limited. There’s no way he’s about to attempt to step through or touch the frightening laser-lined bars of their cell, especially when Keith kicks another rock and it goes through one, it instantly evaporates into dust.

 

If they have to wait for whatever these Galra fucks plan to do with them, then they might as well get out how they feel while they still can.

 

Lance tucks away that foreboding feeling, that creeping fear in the back of his mind that anything...anything could happen from here. He might not get another chance to do this, and it’s terrifying to even think about the fact he and Keith may be separated, or something even worse could happen to them.

 

 _File it away, Lance, shake it off_ , he tells himself. _Be strong, you can do this. You’ll find a way out of this, Keith will be fine, and both of you will get out and save the day by getting everyone back to ship and off this godforsaken planet._

 

He glances back to Keith, whose morosely making a new hobby of kicking rocks around.

 

“So,” Lance starts quietly, hand rubbing up his arm, because he supposes this ‘heart-to-heart’ thing is long overdue. “T-that...that long, huh?”

 

Lance can hear the sharp inhale of breath near him, and he looks over right as Keith slumps back against the wall much like he did earlier. He doesn’t look angry anymore, or flustered -- just tired.

 

“...Yeah.”

 

Lance opens his mouth, willing himself to find some word that might fit out of it alright, but luckily Keith saves him from what will undoubtedly be another fuck up, another flounder of his to add to the list of all his past mistakes.

 

“Look, dude.” Keith purses his lips. “I don’t know, I guess it’s different for me, because I’ve always been this way, alright?”

 

Lance furrows his brows, turning around and sitting indian style to face Keith fully. “You’ve...always jacked off to me?”

 

Keith groans and lightly punches Lance’s shoulder. “No, you idiot. Like, the whole ‘being gay’ thing. I don’t even stop to think about it, cause I never liked girls in the first place. That’s just me. I’ve always liked guys, I’ve always _known_ I’ve liked guys, so, it’s not…”  

 

Finally, he lifts those sad eyes to Lance, but he isn’t small anymore -- he’s just Keith, average size, average height, real, confident - himself. His voice doesn’t waver, his body isn’t shaking, and he’s holding his head up high, straightening his back.

 

“It wasn’t a big deal. I just accepted it, figured you didn’t really like me because of how you acted towards me - and also because I’m used to the probability that those I like may not be into dudes like that - and that was that.” His hand inches closer to Lance, fingers fluttering near the armor on his thigh, like he doesn’t know where to let them land, exactly. “But I always liked you, even if you are seriously such an ass sometimes. More than just the...sexual stuff, too. And yeah, it is...gay. Super gay, full homo, I guess.”

 

He’s staring up at him shyly now through the thick of his pretty eyelashes, tucking a strand of hair behind those cute ears Lance knows every line and arch of by heart. Lance can’t help but watch him, admire everything about him - his words, his features, mannerisms - even though he’s done it thousands of times over by now.

 

It never gets old.

 

Keith’s voice lowers, and he breaks eye contact momentarily, cheeks bearing a tiny hint of pink along them. “But it’s also...just...just who you, uh, like, you know? It’s normal.”

 

Lance’s eyes follow the drawn lines of his weary face, absorbing his words into his memory which is probably occupied by 90% Keith everything at this point.

 

This is just Keith, who Lance happens to love. Just Keith, who has harboured this thing for him for as long as Lance has held feelings for him, and never once had any issues with the fact he was attracted to Lance. More impressively, not only did he do that, but he put aside his own feelings and didn’t let them at all interfere with their interactions to the point Lance didn’t even have the smallest inkling of how he was feeling - which absolutely astounds him.

 

Lance’s chest tightens, throat constricted, but his head is soaring above a clear-blue sky it’s like he’s only now realizing exists.

 

Keith always accepted Lance. He always, at some level, cared about him.

 

Lance wonders what it would be like, to always be secure in who you were, to always realize what you wanted and be able to accept yourself so easily. He never knew that was even a thing that was possible, never considered that the missing piece he needed all along might have been this -- the encouragement to see that you are who you are, no matter what you might like, _who_ you might like, or _how_ you might like them.

 

“It’s okay, Lance,” Keith sighs, drawing nearer, deciding to put his palms onto Lance’s shoulders and pushing down on them firmly. Lance buckles a little internally, folds under him, but Keith grounds him, keeps him steady. “You want to pummel my ass, I want to pummel your ass, so like...um, it’s gonna be alright. There’s nothing wrong with that. Being attracted to a guy is totally fine.”

 

“While I uh...appreciate that...um, inspiring pep talk there, buddy,” Lance squeaks, focusing tenfold on not focusing tenfold at that whole ‘ass pummeling’ business that were actual words that actually just came out of Keith’s mouth. “That wasn’t...wasn’t really the big issue.”

 

Keith cocks his head, hands slipping to Lance’s forearms instead. “Huh? Then what _was_ your problem?”

 

What _...is_ his problem?

 

Lance shakes his head. No, what _was_ his problem?

 

He racks his brain for an answer that might make sense, to explain somehow that what he’d been stupidly mistaking as jealousy, envy, and frustration with Keith, had actually been more along the lines of admiration, love, and longing all along.

 

He doesn’t even know where to begin to describe just how ineffably thick-skulled he’s been. He can’t bring himself to tell Keith that he was ashamed of the fact it was Keith he harboured these embarrassing feelings for. That it was Keith, who he had some fake superiority complex with for so long that he blamed him for so many of his problems over time that it almost seemed like he really was at fault for everything bad in his life.

 

He knows now that that isn’t true in any way, is guilty that that was even a thing he did. He loves Keith, and Keith never did anything wrong to him.

 

His _problem_? In short, he’s an idiot.

 

And it all seems so trivial now, especially considering how fucked of a situation they’re in, like none of this bullshit ever mattered in the first place. This is all so stupid. He liked Keith this whole time, Keith _liked him back -_ well, at least enough to put up with and jerk-off to him. As far as romance goes, he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself, but Lance considers the fact Keith wants to bang him good enough for him to take for the time being.

 

...wait, _does_ he want to bang him? Lance wonders exactly what these jerking off fantasies have entailed, wonders exactly what Keith might be willing to do besides apparently giving him a handjob and precarious blowjob…well, he _did_ say something about pummeling his ass...

 

Lance shakes his head, trying to keep from focusing on anything but that. He quickly tucks that thought away for another time.

 

“Well, I mean, yeah, I guess the whole ‘dude liking thing’ was something I hadn’t really thought about much before, so maybe that was part of it at first, but…” Lance smiles gently, finds his arms moving of their own accord between Keith’s to cup his face. “Honestly? I’m just sort of a dense asshole.”

 

For a moment, Keith doesn’t look like he’s going to respond, staring back at him with wide eyes, but then -- he laughs. Cute, low pitched, adorable giggles that Lance loves, that Lance commits to his reserved Keith memory every time he hears them.

 

Laughs like when he recorded his dumbass singing and heard Keith’s reaction through the wall.

 

Cute, cute, cute.

 

“Well, I won’t deny that. That sounds about right,” Keith says, accepting that very surface level information, seemingly content with leaving it at that.

 

But Lance isn’t content with leaving it at that.

 

Lance feels like he deserves to know more, that that was honestly the least he could do in all this craziness.

 

“Keith, no really, listen to me, it was bad. You don’t understand. I thought--” Lance gulps, stroking a finger lightly across Keith’s cheek, tracing over the blossoming flush there. “I want to tell you something - something important.”

 

Keith blinks owlishly at him, but doesn’t respond, and Lance takes that as his cue to go on. Whatever was in that smoke earlier may be helping to ease the pain of revealing his innermost desires like this, but in the wake of its waning effects, this is without a doubt, entirely within his own free will.

 

He _wants_ Keith to knows this. It’s the only thing that can properly explain any of this mess.

 

“Back at the Garrison, after you left, my dumbass thought that I was sick for months. I went...I went to the infirmary at least three times a week for who knows how long, only for them to tell me nothing was ever actually wrong, but I thought there _had_ to be, because I was falling apart at the seams. I even fucking told Pidge I thought I had _permanent flu_. But I...”

 

Keith leans into his touch, places one of his hands on Lance’s knee and draws small circles over it, his eyes falling mostly shut as he listens.

 

“I was just really stupid. I felt like...like one of my vital organs had been ripped out of me all of a sudden, dude. It was one of the worst pains I’ve ever had, I was sure I was going crazy. At the time, I was afraid to admit to everyone, to myself, that I--that the simple truth was--”

 

Keith’s eyes begin to open back up, and he’s staring at him with this unreadable expression, this -- shock, or some sort of underlying tone of suspicion, like he can’t fully believe such a thing happened.

 

Lance pushes on, smiling weakly.

 

“...was that I just really missed you. I missed you a lot. I missed you so much, I was physically ill.”

 

His confession is met with silence for what seems like forever. Keith has gone completely rigid beneath his fingertips.

 

“...Really?” Keith finally asks in this strangled, lost sounding voice, like the thought that anyone could miss him is such a foreign concept Lance might as well be telling him this in a language he doesn’t understand.

 

Lance nods shakily.

 

After a few moments of silence where Keith only stares at him wide-eyed, where Lance briefly fears he may have said horribly wrong, the ends of Keith’s lips quirk up into a lopsided grin, voice soft and teasing, but with this fondness to it that makes Lance want to kiss him.

 

“Wow, that is...that is...p-pretty dumb.”

 

So Lance pulls him in closer then, and kisses him.

 

He presses his lips to Keith’s, presses them to his cheek and to his neck hurriedly, recalling that time Keith disappeared beneath his fingertips in his one dream, fearing he might just slip out from under him at any moment if he doesn’t leave marks over all of the exposed skin showing that he can.

 

He wants to tell Keith that the possibility of someone missing him isn’t dumb at all, wants to tell him so many things, but the edge of his fears rise to the forefront of his mind, the main truth in all this that he’s wanted to say for years.

 

“I d-don’t want to lose you again,” he murmurs into the crook of Keith’s neck, resting his forehead there, breath rising in panic, wrapping his arms around him tight.

 

And now he can feel the warmth of tears pricking at the edges of his eyes as he lays his insecurities out. It’s like the wall to a dam has been opened, like a valve of his heart ripped apart and exposed. It doesn’t really hurt anymore, because Keith is there, he’s tangible, and he’s still listening.

 

But Lance is scared, because everything is so fleeting. Things can change so fast and so easily, like this unexpected ambush. He doesn’t know how long Keith will remain tangible, will remain listening, and it’s the most frightening thing he’s felt since all these years ago when he first thought he lost him forever.

 

“Please, Keith, I never want to have to go through that again, please, don’t let them...I don’t want anyone to take you away from me, I can’t--I can’t do it again, I can’t do this without you, don’t let them---I don’t want you to go. You, everyone else, you’re all I have now, I can’t...”

 

Lance’s vision blurs, his words become a choking, garbled mess of pleas he isn’t sure are even making sense anymore.

 

“You...you won’t lose me, Lance, it’s okay. I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere, it’s going to be alright,” Keith reassures him, and then he lifts his chin up and kisses him back, brushes away the wetness that’s ended up spilling out over his cheeks anyway.

 

Chastely, carefully he smooths those perfect lips over his, and it lifts the rest of that pain that’s settled in Lance’s chest over the years, takes away some more of those bad parts in him.

 

Keith hugs him tighter to his chest, running fingers through his hair and shushing him in a way a mother might to their upset child. He says soothing things in this low, comforting voice until Lance’s tears begin to slow and taper off.

 

“I’d never, ever leave you. And we’ll find a way out of here, I promise.”

 

* * *

 

“This is insane. Barbaric, unheard of, absolutely the battiest thing I’ve heard in cinquans.”

 

They’re tangled up in each other’s embrace, simply holding on, relishing in the relief that they’re there and still relatively okay, when Lance hears the muted hiss of one of the guards from earlier. Instantly, he and Keith disengage, on edge and preparing themselves for whatever might be coming.

 

“We can’t do this, Zarkon would--”

 

The booming voice of the first guard is abruptly cut off by another, even harsher voice, easily recognizable as the same from earlier.

 

“It isn’t his orders here, you’re aware of that, right? Thace is in jurisdiction, and you know he’s highest on chain of command. I’m sorry, personally I’d love to crush them beneath my claws as much as the rest of us, but it’s out of my hands.”

 

The clapping of heavy footfalls grows louder, echoes throughout the cell as they approach. Lance can barely make sense of their conversation, and he can tell by the confusion drawing up Keith’s face that he’s having similar thoughts. That name, _Thace_ \-- Lance almost inappropriately laughs as it instantly reminds him of the Komians for some reason.

 

“Thace is a fucking fool. These humans cannot be trusted!” The first voice protests, pitch rising an octave to ingratiatingly annoying levels. Luckily, the second pipes up again, drowning out the migraine-inducing tone of his partner.

 

“Our focus is on that princess, the lions, and that...champion guy or whatever. Thace has reassured us Zarkon has no interest in these pathetic, inconsequential pawns here. It is not our place to question it.”

 

The two come into view in all their terrible, purple, pissy glory as they pause in front of their bars, both smirking despite their heated conversation. Lance’s brows furrow further, and he automatically places a hand on Keith’s knee when he notices the subtle twitch of it, as if Keith is itching to go up and attack them somehow.

 

Which, honestly, since it’s Keith, is not entirely out of the realm of possibility.

 

“Besides,” the second guard - the burlier, Ace Ventura looking fuck - snarls as he moves his chilling, empty yellow gaze towards them, “What could these _children_ possibly do without their precious little lions? They are so weak and defenseless, I could snap their spineless bodies in half with the flick of a finger.”

 

Licking his yellowed, pointed teeth so dramatically they both cringe, the guard cackles in such a stereotypical way Lance can’t help but roll his eyes.

 

“Aw, come on man, really? That’s the best you can do?” Lance snorts, raising a brow and crossing his arms. “Are you two even hearing yourselves? You guys sound like the most basic bitches of disney villains.”

 

Keith returns his touch by laying his hand over Lance’s arm, making an exaggerated gesture with his chin towards him. Their eyes meet, and Lance suppresses the flutter that rises in his chest at the radiance of Keith’s smug smile. Keith clicks his tongue and shakes his head.

 

“It’s fine, Lance. If they’re gonna act like they’re so above us, they can start by bending us over and kissing our asses,” Keith says flatly, flipping them off, and Lance stifles a laugh. “You hear that fuckwads? You can eat shit and get t-bagged, dicks.”

 

Ace Ventura fuck narrows his eyes, but doesn’t say anything as he angrily flips a switch, and the lasers holding them in suddenly deactivate. They fade out like they were never there in the first place, and freedom waits like a delicious meal on a silver platter, mere feet from them. Both Lance and Keith rise, Lance mimicking Keith’s fighting stance since they have no protection but their own innate ability to kick Galra ass.

 

Miraculously, absolutely bafflingly-- the second guard steps forward with a huff, his own weapon still raised in warning, but tosses two objects towards them.

 

“Against everything that makes any sort of sense, I guess you’re free to go. So take your shit and get the hell out of our sight.”

 

Keith seems to be about as on edge, as suspicious of them as Lance, because as he bends to retrieve the objects -- which are, as Lance can tell by squinting towards the floor, his bayard and Keith’s knife -- he never lets his eyes off the guards. Lance covers him, doesn’t chance moving down as well in case this is a trap.

 

“Hey, just what the hell is this about?” Lance laughs, and it has never been emptier, hollower. If this is a joke, it’s far from funny. “You think we’re dumb enough to fall for something like this?”

 

Keith hisses his name, says something or other about shutting up, but Lance can’t stand for that. He can’t stand for that when these monsters are responsible for attacking his _family_ , for imprisoning the people he loves and doing god knows what else to his fellow teammates when all they were doing was trying to _help people_ , trying to reach out and make the universe a better place.

 

This is it, he’s fucking had it. He has never felt as angry as he has in this moment.

 

Stocky, annoying, and ugly steps intimidatingly forward, but Lance doesn’t back down, matching him with his own step forward.

 

“Human, I suggest you do as we say, before we change our minds.”

 

The other guard laughs in this way that Lance hates -- hates, hates, hates. His lips curl into an awful smirk, one Lance would love to tear right off his stupid, furry ass face.

 

Regardless of their smugness, the guards are moving out of the way, gesturing towards the hall, lowering their weapons. Keith is pushing his bayard into his hands, pulling him roughly by the arm so they can slip past and escape.

 

“No, no, no, buddy, you listen here, because I have some important shit to say, and after kidnapping and imprisoning us, you don’t get to just--” Lance flails his arms, shrugging off Keith’s once more. “You don’t get to just do that! Just - just come in here and tell us we can leave with no explanation after almost killing us!”

 

“Lance, come on, it’s not important what their asinine reasons are. Even if it is a trap, this is our chance to leave, so we’ve got to get out of--”

 

“Where the fuck are the others?” Lance yells over the din of the shots firing from his gun, which he isn’t completely registering he’s pulling the trigger of. The guards duck, but don’t fire back, and for some reason that only pisses him off more.

 

“What did you do with them, you motherfucking fuzzy, shitty bastards?!”

 

Keith is calling him again, and that’s the only reason Lance moves, but he never ceases fire, running basically backwards to try in vain to see some explosion of red tainted purple fur. And when he does turn as the hall twists into another corridor, he’s still shooting over his shoulder, never wanting to obliterate someone more than he does in that moment.

 

And still, he can hear that guard laughing, still, Keith is dragging him away, and still, his eyes prick warm with the threat of tears as he half runs, half gets dragged, and fires the shit out of his bayard at anything that moves within a 100 foot radius of them.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah ha ha...the thing was the summary line finally getting dropped and that they talked! What were you all thinking..? 
> 
>  
> 
> Anyway, Lemon back with a bit of role reversal fun here, with Lance losing it a bit and Keith having to ground him. Everyone has a breaking point, and no one fucks with Lance’s family, okay. Also, sorry for late update again, life has been rough lately. But again, hopefully the length of this makes up for that! I'm not sure if I'll be putting another chapter this month or not (Moth will though, so no worries), so happy holidays in advance to everyone and I will be back with more debauchery later~


	16. Not With a Bang

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No campfire can ever burn as hot as the sexual tension on Rengaron.

_Lance snaps to attention in a half-empty classroom, roused from a nap as his wrist begins to tingle with the familiar sensation of falling asleep beneath the weight of his head. Looking around to see if anyone noticed, he hurriedly wipes the drool from the corners of his mouth. He can hear his classmates muttering around him_ _—_ _hissing secrets, making jokes_ _—_ _and it takes him a moment to realize that no one is actually talking about him._

 _It’s mid-November, but he wouldn’t know it if he looked outside. His mother says that the heat back home is so overbearing that the nativity scene at her church melted in the sun. He’d jokingly told her that it was God punishing them for putting out their decorations too early_ _—_ _the greatest sin of all, really_ _—_ _but part of him had ached to tell her that it’s even hotter here. His skin burns if he stays out in the daylight for too long, but the nights drags on, cold and barren and oh-so lonely outside of the window in his room. He looks out into the empty blackness of the desert surrounding the Garrison, and he yearns for home. He yearns for his family’s cramped apartment, for the room that he shared with his older brother. He wishes that he could wake up to the sound of his siblings fighting over the good chair_ _—_ _the one that stood on all four feet evenly_ _—_ _instead of the morning alarms, instead of the sound of his roommate snoring over the intercom._

 _His homesickness is cut off abruptly when he hears one of the girls behind him saying a name_ _—_ _a name that triggers something ugly and black to writhe deep down inside of his chest. It’s another reminder that he’s so, so far from home, so far from anyone who might appreciate him for his cleverness, his eagerness to try_ _—_ _far from anywhere where he might be encouraged to be anything that he wants to be, if only because he’s Lance: charismatic, intelligent, and more determined than anyone else._

_No, in the Galaxy Garrison, as he’s learned the hard way over many, many months, if you aren’t at the very tip-top of the pyramid, you’re only the bricks holding up the foundation._

_And Keith Kogane_ _—_ _that stupid fucking name, for a stupid, infuriating asshole_ _—_ _is currently the heaviest weight crushing down on top of Lance’s shoulders._

_“Did you hear why?” one of the girls asks, “Did he get in a fight? I bet he got in a fight, didn’t he?”_

_He can’t make any sense of what they’re talking about, but they definitely said Keith’s name. And of course they did! It’s always Keith-this, Keith-that_ _—_ _as though he’s popular or something. As though he isn’t an insufferable prick who no one actually talks to. As though he isn’t just a weirdo who’s just a little too good at everything. He’s a dick, really. He’s cocky and he’s rude, and that’s definitely not just because he talks to Lance like he doesn’t know who he is_ _—_ _even though they’ve been in the same damn class all year, and it’s not like Lance hasn’t tried!_

_Who does he think he is?_

_Shaking off the last of his anger, Lance tells himself to focus on the conversation. One of the girls is telling the others that she has no idea why_ _—_ _but why what? Did Keith get in another argument with a student? It wouldn’t be the first, or even the fifth time. He’s better at making enemies than anyone who Lance has ever met before._

 _One of the other girls is saying that it’s unfortunate, because he was so cute, and Lance wonders briefly if maybe Keith died. He tries to tell himself that it would be a relief if that were to happen, but something sits heavily in the pits of his belly at the thought of it. His mother had always told him not to wish death on anyone_ _—_ _not even your worst enemy, she’d said. And that’s probably it. It’s probably nothing other than guilt for disobeying her._

_He begins to tell himself that Keith wasn’t even that cute anyway, but then he’s thinking about how stupid that greasy mullet looks, how the fringe hanging in his eyes casts shadows over those dark, violet eyes. How his cheeks dust pink with flustered pride when he steps from the simulator and their instructor pats him hard on the back, telling him that he’s done an amazing job again._

_He thinks about that charming little smile that dimples Keith’s cheeks during rare moments of apparent happiness_ _,_ _when sometimes he even_ laughs _as he talks to Takashi Shirogane_ _—_ _of all people, of course, the most talented pilot here._

_He thinks about the way that the world had seemed to crash around all of them when they’d learned that the Kerberos mission had failed, how for the very first time, he’d really taken a good, hard look at Keith’s face, and that fire, constantly ignited deep down in the depths of his eyes, had looked as though it had been extinguished._

_No one had went to Keith to comfort him in that moment, even though everyone knew that Shiro was his only friend. No instructors or counselors had reached out to make sure that he was okay in the days that followed, as though no one wanted to step up and shoulder that weight of whatever sadness was beginning to brew inside of him._

_Lance had tried that day, only briefly, regardless of how much he’d wanted to convince himself that Keith’s despair wasn’t worth his time. He’d reached out a hand, hesitating just inches away from Keith’s back._

_And he’d watched Keith walk away without saying a single thing. His voice had lodged itself so deeply in his throat that he could barely even breathe. His muscles had strained under the weight of everything that he could have said_ _—_ _could have did_ _—_ _if he hadn’t been such a chickenshit that he’d just let Keith go deal with his trauma alone._

_He’d told himself back then that he’d skipped a few meals because he was afraid of what the future held for him. It hadn’t had anything to do with looking at Keith, and feeling like the wind had been knocked completely out of his lungs when he’d taken in that haunted, broken-hearted face._

_Speaking of Keith, he thinks, only after the remainder of their class has filed in and taken their seats, and suddenly he’s hearing Keith’s name popping up everywhere around him, the irresponsible bastard still hasn’t made it to class yet._

_He’s not usually late, Lance realizes. Usually, he’s sitting in the back, staring blankly out of the window as his fingers tap idly against his desk, long before anyone else actually manages to finish their breakfast and make their way in._

_Lance is starting to suspect that he doesn’t eat. For whatever reason, he skips breakfast if only so he can show up first, like the little kiss-ass that he is._

_It doesn’t matter that the instructor doesn’t ever come in early enough to see him. Lance knows that it’s something_ _—_ _it has to be something. There has to be some stupid reason why he’s always here when no one else bothers to come in until class is about to start._

_Most people, he thinks, take advantage of their free time in the morning to call home. They talk to their friends, take showers, eat breakfast. They work on last night’s homework, or they hit the gym. Most people have some sort of life beyond this school, but for whatever reason, it seems as though Keith Kogane does not._

_Someone to the left of him is making a joke at Keith’s expense, and Lance wishes that he could have been in on it. He strains his ears to hear something through all of the excitement rumbling around him, if only so he can stop feeling so terribly out of the loop._

_People are laughing, and some are saying that now they might have a chance to move up a few ranks. Someone is complaining about having to find a new roommate, and what a hassle it will be to move someone new into their room. He thinks that he recognizes the guy from somewhere, but he can’t quite put his finger on it, until belatedly, just as the instructor enters the room, he realizes that it’s the guy who shares a room with Keith._

_“Okay, okay, I get it,” the instructor says, raising his hands in the air, “I understand that a lot of things have happened since yesterday, but we still need to focus today, got it? I don’t want to hear even one word about any of this until break.”_

_A guy near the back of the room raises his hand, and their instructor motions as though to tell him to speak._

_“U-uh, so… since Keith’s expelled, are we going to have tryouts for a new fighter pilot?”_

_Their instructor pauses, but Lance can’t focus on anything after that. He’s dreamed about this moment more than he cares to admit_ _—_ _the opportunity to prove himself for a second time, the chance to shine without his light being hindered by someone so much brighter. He’s always told himself that he would charge forward if he ever got a second chance, that he wouldn’t falter, that he would feel nothing but pure determination if Keith were to just disappear and allow him to step up and claim his spot._

_But now, he doesn’t understand why, but his skin feels clammy, and his stomach turns. He can feel the mixture of bile and this morning’s flavorless oatmeal rising in his throat. He can feel his pulse pounding in his brain, itching a headache across his skull, vibrating fearful tremors up and down his spine._

_He raises a trembling hand. He must ask if he can go to the bathroom, because the instructor asks if he’s okay, then hands him the pass._

_He takes uneven steps towards the door, and he can hear them_ _—_ _his peers_ _—_ _their accusatory jeers and whispers enveloping him like a tidal wave as he stumbles out into the hallway._

_“Was Lance friends with Keith?”_

_“What’s his problem?”_

_“Did he not know that Keith got expelled for_ _—_ _”_

_The door slams behind him._

_Eventually, he makes it only a foot or two down the hall. He plants his back firmly against the wall, taking measured breaths, willing himself to calm down as the world continues to spin wildly around him. He slides downward, until his backside hits the floor, and even then, everything is just a swirl of indecipherable colors and sounds in his peripherals_ _—_ _a confusing mixture of sensations that he can’t quite seem to wrap his head around._

_Keith is gone. Just like that._

_He left without a sound._

_He would have thought that Keith would have graduated at the top of their class. He would have ventured off on the next big mission. He wouldn’t have disappeared without a fight, without a bang, without the imprint of his existence burned into the world that he’d left behind._

_But Lance feels as though he’s been branded, and maybe that’s enough for Keith. Maybe it’s enough that he slink off into the shadows without a fight_ _—_ _without the closure of Lance ever knowing that he bested him at anything. Like a coward, he’d sneaked off into the night, like a fucking ghost, as though he never existed at all._

_And Lance knows that soon enough, everyone else will forget that he was ever here. They’ll move on with their lives, they’ll do the best that they can do. But Lance will know, God, he’ll know, that somewhere out there, Keith Kogane is still better than him. He’s still capable of greater things._

_And Lance will fester here, alone, robbed of his only chance to ever earn his spot._

_“Jesus, dude, are you okay? What are you doing out here? Don’t you have class right now?”_

_The blurry reality around him halts to a stop, focuses on the place in front of him, where someone else is speaking. There’s a pair of familiar boots planted on the floor right ahead, and when he cranes his neck to look upward, Hunk is staring down at him, concerned._

_“W-what?”_

_Hunk shakes his head, leaning forward and slipping a hand under each of Lance’s arms. He hoists him up with unusual strength, and Lance might comment on being manipulated like a doll if he weren’t so tongue-tied and lightheaded right now._

_Hunk brushes him off as though the floors in the Garrison could ever be dirty. He smiles wide, but Lance doesn’t miss the worry still obvious in the creases of his mouth. He’s trying to pick him apart, maybe, as though he were some faulty piece of machinery in his mechanic class. As though any of his issues could be cured with a little bit of elbow grease._

_“You get lost on the way to the bathroom?” Hunk asks, motioning idly to the pass grasped firmly in his fist._

_Lance shrugs, letting out a sound that’s an unintelligible mixture of everything that he should be saying right now._

_‘I’m fine’, ‘Don’t worry about me’, ‘Why aren’t you in class?’_ _—_ _he can’t say any of it, so instead, he stays silent. He realizes only too late that this is out of character for him._

_“Ah, you heard about Keith, huh?”_

_He doesn’t know why Hunk would decide to go there first. There’s no reason why Keith getting booted would affect him like this._

_“I_ _—_ _I, uh… yeah, yeah, I heard he got kicked out.”_

_His voice sounds too feeble in his ears. This is bad. It’s just Hunk, he knows, but still, this is bad._

_He can’t have anyone mistaking this sudden sickness for any real sadness over a bastard like Keith taking off._

_“Did his parents already come and get him? D_ _—_ _did they clean out his room that fast?”_

_Hunk sends him a peculiar look, scratching uncomfortably at the back of his head. He takes a moment to answer, as though he’s waiting for Lance to back that question up with some kind of joke, and when nothing comes, he lets out a long breath._

_“You really don’t pay attention to anything, do you?”_

_Lance scowls._

_“To Keith? Hell no,” he spits, regaining his composure in record time, “I don’t even care, so nevermind. I just thought we could head over there and rub it in a little if he hadn’t left yet.”_

_He makes his way toward the bathroom, because no matter how much he tries to tell himself that he’s fine, he still feels like he might vomit. Even in the desert, it’s still close to winter, so maybe he’s caught something. Some of their peers have been sneezing a lot lately. His roommate’s missed two classes now because of the flu. That must be it, he tells himself. He’s always been a healthy guy, so maybe that lucky streak is coming to an end. He must have caught it too._

_Hunk follows closely behind him, saying something about how it’s kind of shitty to kick a guy when he’s already down._

_“I heard they just threw him out,” he adds cautiously, maybe even sadly, if Lance were to care enough to notice, “He just packed a bag and they threw the rest of his stuff out. They closed the doors behind him and he started walking.”_

_Lance shoves his hands in his pockets, ignoring a new wave of nausea as it washes over him._

_“That’s such bullshit, dude,” he says through his teeth, swallowing down the bile rising in his throat, “Who told you that? They don’t just throw people out like that.”_

_Hunk lets out a noncommittal noise, and Lance is sure that he’s shrugging behind him. They come closer to the bathroom, and it’s a struggle to pretend that he’s not fighting down sickness. He feels as though he could explode any second now._

_“What’d he even get kicked out for anyway?”_

_He doesn’t care, really, but if it were for something good_ _—_ _like blowing up the simulator, like failing a test so horribly that the Garrison would be embarrassed to keep hosting him_ _—_ _maybe Lance could sleep better at night._

_He pushes open the door, hesitating for only a moment as he awaits Hunk’s answer._

_“Dunno,” Hunks tells him, and Lance lets out a slow, tapered breath, “Everyone just keeps saying ‘Disciplinary Issue’, which I think is probably code for punching a teacher or something. Keith’s kind of hotheaded, isn’t he? Everyone says that it wouldn’t have been out of character for him to pop an instructor, you know. Can you imagine becoming like, the best pilot, and throwing that away just because you were mad?”_

_Shoving the door all the way open with just a little more force than necessary, Lance turns to send Hunk a glare._

_“He wasn’t the best pilot,” he says._

_Hunk sighs, shaking his head._

_“Alright, whatever, a good pilot then. He worked his ass off to get into this school, I’m sure, just like the rest of us. Then he just lets that all go down the drain because he couldn’t just… not assault people? What a piece of work, dude.”_

_At that, Lance’s resolve finally breaks. He practically leaps into the first open stall, ignoring the door rattling behind him as he falls to his knees and empties the contents of his stomach. Through his retching, he can hear Hunk asking if he’s okay, if he needs help to the medical ward, if he ate the tuna casserole last night because apparently a lot of new students have been risking it lately and they’ve all ended up with some form of food poisoning._

_“It’s bad news, dude! Please tell me you didn’t eat the tuna casserole_ _—_ _I’m telling you, no food is supposed to be so formless and green! We’re people, dude! Not animals! We can’t survive on goopy green stuff! Lance, seriously_ _—_ _”_

 _“It’s the flu, alright? I_ _—_ _I’m just sick. It’s… it’s nothing. Don’t… don’t worry about it.”_

_Hunk wilts only a little, sending him another frustrating frown._

_He knows what it looks like. He knows that it seems like he’s worried about Keith_ _—_ _that it seems as though he’s thinking of him wandering the desert alone. That he’s wondering if his parents will show up, worried about him, or if the Garrison even bothered to call them at all._

 _He’s not thinking about Keith withering away to nothing in the heat. He’s not thinking about everyone going away for the holidays and leaving him behind_ _—_ _like before, he thinks, last Christmas, when he’d packed his bags to visit home and he’d caught sight of Keith watching as the crowd poured through the front doors_ _,_ _a strange, despondent frown tugging down his lips._

_He knows that, if he has trouble sleeping, if he can’t eat, like he did after Kerberos failed, after he turned around and saw that horrible expression on Keith’s face, that Hunk will start asking questions._

_That he’ll worry that, for whatever reason, Lance is heartbroken that Keith isn’t going to be around anymore._

_But it’s not that. It’s absolutely, definitely not that._

_It’s the flu. He’s just sick._

_And it couldn’t possibly be anything else._

 

“Lance? Lance, listen to me: Wake up, okay? Lance, fuck, get up!”

With a start, Lance pulls himself out of unconsciousness, heart leaping up into his throat as his eyes tear open to take in his surroundings.

It’s dark outside—and they’re _outside_ , somewhere. He doesn’t recognize this place at all, not the smell of the dirt under his palms, or the thick, greenish fog in the air. Not the sounds of the wildlife chirping somewhere beyond the blackened, gnarled trees around them, or the ominous gray moon hanging large and foreboding in the sky.

It takes him a moment to gain his composure, to even his breathing and reassure himself that this isn’t another dream. He can feel the tendrils of memory slowly leaving him, until he can’t recall what he’d been dreaming of at all.

If everything going on lately is any indication, he’s sure that it was about Keith.

Speaking of Keith, he’s currently shaking Lance by the shoulder, one hand poised in the air as though he’s about to slap some sense into him. Lance raises his hands in surrender, pushing his palms against Keith’s chest and putting some distance between them.

Keith’s eyes are bloodshot and glassy, and the tired circles beneath them seem even blacker and deeper in the dark. It almost looks as though someone’s punched him, but Lance decides to believe that nothing like that has happened. He’s fine, he tells himself—they’re fine. Everything is going to be okay.

Beyond Keith, his gaze begins to focus on a pile of _something_ in the dark. There’s firewood—or, at least, something that resembles shards of wood that he assumes Keith chopped from one of these tree-looking things. There’s something bigger and blacker in the shadows, fur-covered and heaving. He tells himself that it’s a trick of the light—of the meager light, yes, but still a trick of it nonetheless. He wills himself to believe that Keith didn’t drag some random monster all the way back to their hiding spot.

He remembers, finally, stumbling away from the Galra ship into Rengaron’s wilderness. He remembers holding tight to his own shaking shoulders, telling himself that everything would be okay. He remembers Keith helping him sit down on the ground, telling him that he would search for food and water, the means to start a fire, somewhere to sleep for the night.

And then, as though intoxicated by whatever the Hell the Galra gassed into their ship, he’d slipped further and further into unconsciousness.

He’d dreamed about _something_ , and apparently Keith had actually made good on his promise to find things.

Keith is pushing something to his lips—a canteen that smells like sweaty gym socks—and he’s saying, soothingly, “I know it stinks, but it’s safe, I promise. It’s water. Just try not to breathe and drink it.”

He drinks, nose scrunched in disgust, and the relief of drinking liquid thankfully overrides his disgust. It tastes just about the same as it smells—like salty, putrid sweat—but he promised that he’d trust Keith, so he’s going to trust that he didn’t wring out his armpit hair into this canteen and try to pass it off as water.

“Pretty gross, huh?” Keith hums, pulling away the canteen and taking a swig, features contorted in distaste, “The whole river smelled like ass. It felt like wading in the aftermath of a fifty-man orgy.”

Lance croaks a laugh. Of all the things that he’d expected to come out of Keith’s mouth, this definitely wasn’t on that list.

“W-what… what the Hell is that thing back there?” he asks, dragging a hand over his face and motioning vaguely at the biggest black blob in the dark, “Is… is it breathing? Is it alive?”

Keith turns, a pensive frown replacing the smile that was only barely there. His brows draw close together, and he tightens the cap on top of the canteen, clipping it to his belt.

“Ah, well… it won’t be for long. You’ve never hunted before, have you?”

Swallowing hard, Lance pulls himself to his feet. He chooses not to answer that question, in favor of stepping forward to inspect the creature himself. Keith shrugs, wandering around the thing—whatever the Hell it is—and nudging the wood into a neater pile, before squatting low and fumbling around in his lame little fanny pack. He isn’t really sure if he has any room to insult it now, as Keith pulls out a few matches and what appears to be lighter fluid. He wonders how long he’s been waiting to use all of this, and if he really does carry it around with him everywhere, just in case.

Maybe living alone in the desert does this to a person. Maybe Tom Hanks left his deserted island feeling like the wilderness was always on his back—a constant threat even back home, forever looming over him. He wonders if survival does these things to a person, or if Keith is just weird.

Keith starts a fire, humming in approval as the small flames begin to lick higher and higher, until the warmth of it even reaches Lance a few feet away. In this time, the contorted creature has stilled completely, but Lance convinces himself that it’s not worth mourning. It will be harder to eat this thing if he thinks about it too much. He tries to tell himself that the hamburgers on Earth were much cuter before they became ground beef, and he ate those just fine.

Even in the dark, he can make out all nine of this alien’s beady eyes staring blankly up at him. It’s covered in long, wiry hair, like some kind of oversized schnauzer with fangs so long and pointy that all thirty or so teeth hang over its bottom lip. Six hooved feet, bent in odd directions, a pool of inky blood staining the grass and the dirt underneath it. If he’d seen this thing back home, he would have thought that it was a haunted house prop—and a bad one at that. The hair on this thing doesn’t even look warm enough to shield anything from the cold.

And it _is_ cold, he realizes, even in his space suit. Keith is shuddering ever-so slightly in his street clothes, rubbing his palms over his arms as the flames climb higher and higher. He takes a look at Lance, then at the creature, and with a small chuckle, he ventures forward.

“If you’re not gonna clean it, can you, uh… maybe sharpen some of these sticks? I tried to find something to make a pot, but it looks like we’re stuck with shish-kabobs.”

He leans forward and plucks a few branches from the ground. Lance grabs them with sweaty, nervous hands, and nearly reels back when Keith brandishes a pocket knife from his pack.

Sharpening, yeah, he can do that. With his back to Keith and the barbaric display of him skinning this poor creature, yeah, he can do it.

Only five minutes into it, however, and the noises behind his back alone are enough to make him not want to eat anything for a week.

He tries to make conversation, if only so he doesn’t have to focus on all of the squelching and the squishing, and the snapping of bones.

“So… uh, you… you’ve hunted before?”

Keith laughs.

“I would have starved if I didn’t, right?”

He doesn’t even know what kind of animals Keith could have found in the desert. He realizes, only now, that he really doesn’t know much about Keith’s time out there at all.

“I guess so,” he sighs, silent for a moment as he carves a few more pieces away from the stick, “Did you ever hunt before that though? Was it hard the first time?”

Keith is quiet for a while, and Lance’s stomach turns as he listens to the disgusting noises. The alien is big, yes, and he’s sure it will take a bit before it’s clean enough to eat, but he’s starting to think that Keith is making it sound extra gross just to get under his skin.

“No, I never did,” Keith tells him, finally, “Dunno if my dad ever hunted. I didn’t really know anything about him, and my mom worked a lot, when, uh… when she was alive. None of the foster families hunted, really. If they did, I wasn’t invited along.”

His laughter afterward is hollow. Lance decides that he’d rather listen to the sound of him skinning that alien for the rest of eternity than hear that laugh ever again.

“You know,” Lance says quickly, eager to veer the conversation in a different direction, “They, uh—you know, everyone back home—they said that the Garrison just sort of… kicked you out. That they locked the doors, and just… let you go. Is that true?”

Another long silence, more squelching, more cracking. Lance allows his eyes to peer upward into the sky, taking in the stars, wondering if everyone else is okay, wherever they are. He can hear Keith breathing—deep and labored—as he does whatever the Hell one must do to prepare an animal for dinner.

“Yeah,” he breathes, “That’s basically it. They let me pack some stuff, but they said, without an address, they didn’t have anywhere to ship the rest of it, and I didn’t have one to give them, so… I think my roommate probably took some of it. Like my books or something. It’s not like I had a lot of stuff anyway.”

The quiet consumes them once more. Lance scrapes off more wood, humming proudly when one of the sticks finally begins to resemble a larger, more pathetic version of the hot dog skewers that they used to use for weenie roasts back home.

Keith is still making all of those horrible noises, until he’s speaking again, and Lance has to stop himself from jumping too much at the sound of his voice, lest he cut himself with the pocketknife.

“Did… did anyone say why?” Keith stumbles over his words a little, and Lance can feel the embarrassment in each syllable, “I—I mean, uh… when people were talking about me getting kicked out, did the staff actually… did they actually say why they did it?”

For a moment, Lance wonders if Keith himself even knows, because never in a million years would he have thought that Keith cared about anyone else’s opinion of him. But then he considers it—that maybe getting booted from a prestigious school with no one and nowhere to go home to might have been devastating. It might have been humiliating. If it had been him instead of Keith, God, he might not have ever gotten over it.

He would have locked himself up in his room for a long, long time. It would have taken days for his family to coax him out.

Shaking his head, he files away more of the branch. He wonders if Keith will give him bonus points if he carves out a fancy handle too, but that might be a little bit beyond his current ability.

“No, they just kept saying _“Disciplinary Issue”_. That’s what they called it. Everyone just assumed that you got in a fight, but… obviously, there were a lot of rumors that you did something crazier,” he laughs, tipping his head back and smiling up at the stars, “For awhile, I think word around the Garrison was that you were actually an alien, and the Garrison got wind of it and sent you off to a containment center or something.”

Keith’s laughter is a little more forced at that, but Lance doesn’t think to question it. He can understand how Keith might not be comfortable talking about this, how it might still be too soon, even after so much time has passed.

He thinks about what they’ll all do when Zarkon is defeated and they’re allowed to go home. He wonders if the Garrison will welcome Hunk, Pidge, and himself back with open arms, if they’ll be allowed to finish their studies.

He wonders where Keith plans to go then, or if he’s even thought about it at all.

“So what was it?” he asks, tired with sore hands, still feeling a little groggy as whatever the Galra drugged them with lingers stubbornly in his veins, “Why’d you get kicked out? What’d you do?”

There’s silence for a long while after that. He listens as even the sounds of Keith skinning that poor alien still to nothing, as the chirping of creatures far-off engulfs them, as he can focus on nothing but his own breathing, and the creeping suspicion that he shouldn’t have put his big nose where it doesn’t belong.

He opens his mouth to apologize, only to be cut off by Keith voice.

He sounds smaller, his words seem forced. It’s as though he’s squeezing this confession through tightly clamped teeth, as though it’s taking everything that he has not to tell Lance to fuck off and mind his own goddamn business for once in his miserable life.

“That’s just it,” he practically hisses, “A _disciplinary issue_. That’s all it was.”

Lance knows when to keep his mouth shut, despite what anyone else might think. Instinctively, he clamps his lips as tightly as he can, clearing his throat awkwardly and dropping the first branch before grabbing the other. He can hear Keith moving around behind him, standing maybe, fiddling with whatever’s left of the alien corpse.

He isn’t even sure if he can eat at this point. He wonders if Keith will be mad at him if he refuses food after all of the work that he’s put into preparing it.

He’s locked in thought, arguing with himself internally, and when something heavy hits the ground directly behind him, he can’t stop himself from jumping to action.

The battle cry that tears from his throat is more of a girlish shriek—but so what?! The stance that he takes is more of a coward guarding their face, or someone covering themselves up after being walked in on in the shower—but can Keith honestly blame him?! Who just startles someone like that anyway?!

But Keith is laughing, doubling over and apologizing profusely, and Lance can’t stay mad at him when he calms down enough to drink in the beauty of his smile.

“S-sorry, God, I’m sorry—I—I just, I had to pull it closer to the fire, okay? It’s fine, it’s still dead, dude. I—I’m gonna help you finish the sticks, okay?”

He fetches the other stick from the ground, plopping down in a sitting position to Lance’s right. He’s still laughing just a little, muttering under his breath about how someone could possibly manage to mess up something as simple as cutting a stick into a point.

With a huff, Lance sits down too. He carves away at his stick in silence, forcing himself to ignore the mound of dead alien sitting silently behind them.

And time passes, Keith ends up finishing both sticks, if only so they can actually get this done some time tonight, before slicing off a few gracious portions of alien and holding them over the fire.

The flavor, once they’re sufficiently cooked and Lance chances a bite only after Keith’s gotten halfway through his own, is something akin to fried mud. It feels like chewing through a tire, if the tire were grittier, maybe. His stomach complains, his throat barely manages to accept it, but in the end, he eats.

They wash down their meal with more armpit water, and for the first time in his life, he actually misses the food goo.

After dinner, Keith begins messing with the alien’s skin, and Lance can’t really stomach watching that either. He busies himself with trying to contact the other Paladins through his helmet, but he only gets static. It’s growing only colder, as the moon fades into the clouds overhead, and the darkness settling over them swells fear in his chest.

Even the wildlife around them seems to have stilled, and the silence overwhelms him. Suddenly, not even the fear or the regret of putting his foot in his mouth can stop him from talking, but Keith only watches quietly, unjudging, as though he might appreciate the sound of Lance’s voice as well.

“You know, uh, I always wanted to go camping when I was little, but my mom said that it was a bad idea,” he’s running his fingers over the sides of his helmet in his lap, as though touching it gently enough might make it work again, “She was probably right. I mean, we’re camping now and I kind of hate it. Maybe if we would have had an RV or something, it would have been better, but I guess that’s not really camping, is it?”

Keith laughs softly, doing something to the skin with his knife without really looking at it.

“No,” he says, “I don’t think that’s actually really camping.”

“My mom said that she didn’t want me calling her in the middle of the night to come pick me up, you know, because she knew that I wouldn’t want to do it when I actually got out there. One time, she let my brother and me set up a tent in the back yard, but even then, we ended up coming inside at like midnight and sleeping in our rooms.”

He catches Keith’s smile, and he can’t help but smile back. The memories continue to surface as he talks about his past, as he delves deeper and deeper into the homesickness that he knows one day will consume him completely. But maybe it’s better this way—to keep remembering things, to remind himself of them often. Maybe keeping them fresh on his mind will allow him to slip more comfortably back into his old life when he gets home. Maybe then it won’t feel like he’s a completely different person, a fraud, too big for his old skin.

“You really miss your mom, don’t you?” Keith asks, and it’s an innocent question. It shouldn’t mean anything, but it blossoms sharp pinpricks of pain deep down inside of his chest. For a moment, all that he can do is sit still and fumble with the right words to say.

“Uh, y-yeah,” his feeble voice is pathetic even in his own ears, but Keith’s eyes are gentle as they sparkle the reflection of the fire, “She was my best friend, I guess. My dad, he, uh… he always thought that I’d be the kid who would help him with stuff and do… “dad and son” things, but I really just wanted to hang out with my mom.”

Keith’s eyes wander over to the flames, as his fingers tangle in the unruly alien fur. He seems to be deep in thought for awhile, and Lance allows himself to just watch him. He looks tired, but that’s really nothing new. His hair is messy, tangled in all different directions. There are swatches of dirt on his cheeks, embedded under his nails. There are dark stains against his clothes that Lance doesn’t even want to consider might be alien blood. He’s biting his lip ever-so-slightly, brows knitted close together, eyes flickering with that same determination that Lance has grown so accustomed to. He looks at home here—out in the middle of nowhere, fighting for his life. He looks more comfortable in the wilderness than Lance has ever seen him since they met.

And he smiles, finally, after so much time passes. It’s so small that Lance wonders if it’s even there at all, or if it’s only the flames casting shadows against his skin.

“That sounds nice,” he says quietly, thoughtfully, “I bet they miss you too.”

And they do, Lance knows. He knows that his mother probably cried when she saw his face on the news. He knows that she was worried sick when he decided to join the Galaxy Garrison in the first place. She’d called him the night after the Kerberos mission’s failure was broadcast on TV back home, and she’d told him tearfully, _“I don’t ever want my baby to end up on TV like that, okay? I don’t want to get that phone call from your school and find out that you got yourself killed.”_

He wishes that he could tell her that he’s sorry—that he didn’t have to wait so long to do it. He wishes that he could get just one phone call back home, so he could tell her, _“Mom, I’m okay. I’m alive. I’m doing just fine.”_

But life isn’t that easy, he knows, and Keith probably wouldn’t even know what to do with a phone call back home anyway. Keith would have no one to apologize to, no one to reassure that he’s doing alright. So maybe he needs to stop thinking about it so much. Maybe he just needs to be thankful for what he has.

“You know, I bet my mom would love you,” he says, instead of allowing himself to fester in his sadness for too long, “She can be a real hard-ass, but she’d love you. She’d even tell you so after she finished yelling at you for not taking a shower or finishing your dinner.”

Keith is looking at him with more confusion now. He doesn’t seem as though he’s having an easy time connecting the dots between this conversation and the last. He doesn’t understand why Lance is telling him how his mother would feel about him.

“I’ll introduce you guys when we’re done with Zarkon, okay? I’ll bring you home with me and you can meet my entire family.”

Keith flicks his gaze away with lightening speed at that, a flush so dark painting his cheeks that Lance can make it out easily in the darkness. He forces himself to keep a straight face, not to backpedal, to own this truly suave remark as though he’d made it intentionally. The implications alone are enough to make him want to hide his face from Keith forever: the idea that he basically just asked to bring his new boyfriend home to meet his parents after what couldn’t even be considered a real first date.

And could Keith even be considered his boyfriend? Sure, they both just admitted to jacking off to each other, but does that really mean anything more than, _‘Hey, you’re hot enough that my dick likes you’_?

“I-I mean, uh… You probably love that shack in the desert and all, but it doesn’t have cable, does it? Or pizza delivery? Or like a dozen little kids that are gonna dogpile you every time that you come home?”

He’s laughing to cover up his mortification—which is due more, if he’s completely honest with himself, to the fact that he’s actually excited about bringing Keith home to meet his family. It would be good for him—for both of them—to connect and reconnect with people who will give them enough love to make all of this sadness and pain that they’ve experienced in space really worth it. It will be healing, he thinks, when the day finally comes for them to return home and finally, after so much loneliness and so much needless fighting, be surrounded by people who love them.

Keith is definitely smiling now, there’s no doubt about it. He’s pulled his knees to his chest under the alien skin, eyes soft and dazed with something that Lance likes to imagine might be happiness. For awhile, he just stares at that little smile, wondering how he could have even convinced himself that he hated this person—how he could have told himself that Keith was anything but great, anything but brave and loyal, charming in his confusion over social norms, endearing even when he hasn’t bothered to bathe in days, and even with the deepest, darkest tired bags under his eyes.

And he wonders when he started realizing that he didn’t hate Keith at all. He wonders when he finally pulled his head completely out of his ass and admitted to himself that whatever he was feeling was nothing more than hopeless admiration.

“I’m not very good with kids,” Keith tells him, “But I think pizza sounds pretty good.”

“Well, I guess it’s a plan then,” Lance replies, before his insecurity can stop him, “Or… should I say… a date?”

There’s more laughter at that, and a flood of warmth settles over Lance’s entire body. He takes a moment, buzzing with euphoria, with the relief of being safe after so much stress wracking through him just a few hours earlier, to look around their campsite. They’re settled in a small clearing, caged by those tall, angular tree-like growths. The things themselves look scaly and almost _alive_ , when he looks close enough. Be it a trick of the fire, or maybe his own paranoia, but it almost looks as though they’re breathing.

Shaking his head to chase away those terrifying thoughts, he notices a small cave just behind Keith, and he wonders if he picked this spot for the hiding place.

Part of him thinks that finding out if anything else might be hiding in there might be worse than just toughing it out here, but then Keith is following his line of sight with a crane of his neck, and he’s talking in that careful, reassuring way that Lance is just now starting to get used to hearing from him.

“I already checked that place out earlier,” he says, “Aside from some bugs, it doesn’t look like anything lives in there. The Galra don’t seem like they’re gonna be a threat to us, but I don’t know if any higher lifeforms live here or not.”

Lance nods, trying his hardest not to get too frazzled by this information. Really, it shouldn’t be anything new. Allura spoke as though she knew of some kind of alien race that existed on this planet, and maybe the Galra haven’t gotten to all of them just yet. Maybe, much like themselves, they’re cowering and confused somewhere out in the wilderness, unsure of who they can really trust.

Keith stands slowly, fumbling with the skin in his hands.

“I know it smells like wet dog, but this is the best blanket that we’re gonna get.”

Lance really doesn’t know what he was expecting, but through the mortification, through the absolute disgust at the mere idea of sleeping with the fur of the creature that they just ate for dinner, he can only think of two things:

One, why does Keith seem so absolutely enthralled by the idea of toughing it out here?

And two, which one of them is going to get the blanket?

And soon, as though the universe is determined to remind him again and again that he really needs to start picking up on the little clues before asking such silly questions, he gets the most obvious answer.

To the second one, at least.

Even huddled with Keith in a murky, damp cave, spooning under the smelly alien skin, he still isn’t sure why Keith loves camping so much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there! Moth here again—beginning what I would like to formally title "Mothmas: with flyingisland". Which starts now, officially. Basically, I'm gonna be writing until Lemon stops being such a busy bee, so please try not to get too sick of me.
> 
> Anyway, this chapter was honestly my new favorite to write, which I think might be soon usurped by the next one. There are a few very dated references here too, and if you can point them out, well... I'll just be really impressed, I think.
> 
> Thanks again for reading! I'll see you guys again next week!


	17. But A Whimper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith embraces the bump in the night.

Tucked away in the cramped cockpit of the Green Lion, Pidge pinches the bridge of her nose in hopes of chasing away a headache. Hunk and Coran are bickering about something as they tangle themselves in an assortment of wires, too caught up in their argument to realize that they’re not even working on the right part of the ship. 

She’d help, sure, if she weren’t so determined that it was pointless. Green isn’t sitting so still because she’s broken. She’s been poisoned somehow—as have the other Lions, she’s sure. They’d run from Yellow when they’d discovered that she wasn’t turning on, then to Red and Blue in hopes of meeting up with Keith and Lance, and with Galra drones hot on their tail, they’d finally decided to lock themselves away within Green whether she actually started for them or not.

She can feel Green’s spirit, but only slightly. It feels as though she’s listening to those muffled purrs with her ear pressed against a concrete wall—or maybe like Green is underwater, and she can only make out a few frantic, desperate words.

In her head, after they’d calmed down enough to think rationally, she’d called out to Green, begging her to start, to be alive, to be okay. 

And Green had sent her the smallest _S.O.S._ , asking her only to sit tight and wait it out.

“The lions aren’t broken,” she’d told the others, “They’re  _ “hiding” _ . Green says that the Galra took Keith and Lance, but… they’re okay? She says that Red says that they’re both okay.”

But, of course, neither of the knuckleheads currently trapped with her could accept that answer. Coran had told her that the Alteans created the Lions, so obviously he would know better than them if something like that was possible. Hunk, in his usual nervous way, had simply picked up the first task that he could find to take his mind off of things, and Pidge can’t honestly say that she blames him.

She would never imagine actually saying it out loud, but she thinks that Coran might be busying himself for the very same reason. Most people, be them human or alien, don’t like the idea of sitting around helplessly with danger just around the corner.

She’s listening to Green’s small echoes of thought, sliding her gaze all the way up toward the ceiling. It’s dark in here now and frightfully cold, and she hopes that wherever Keith and Lance are, they’re finding a way to stay warm.

“Say,” she says idly, tapping a finger against the darkened buttons on the dashboard, “Did either of you even know that anything was going on between Keith and Lance—you know, before Lance started acting funny?”

She isn’t sure why that’s the question that she decided to go with, and she’s definitely surprised when it actually manages to pull Coran and Hunk out of their heated debate.

Hunk is the first one to speak, as Coran only looks to her curiously—surely as surprised by this sudden line of questioning as she is.

“Uh, not really. Looking back on it, I guess I probably should have, right? I mean, he is my best bro, and he wasn’t really doing a very good job of hiding it, even if he didn’t actually know about it either…”

Finger to his chin, Hunk’s eyes stare off somewhere in the shadows, glassy and thoughtful. She can make out the faintest bit of regret tinging his frown, as though he thinks that he could have changed this outcome if he’d only been a better friend. She almost tells him that the Galra would have attacked the castle regardless of if Keith and Lance had actually managed to make out sooner, but then Coran is speaking, and she misses the chance entirely. Hunk is quick to cover up his remorse with a goofy, purposefully misleading smile. 

She wonders how long he’s been faking it for the sake of keeping everything together. She wonders how long all of them have been pretending that things are better than they really are, if only so they don’t drown in their own misery.

“There’s an old Altean saying,” Coran interjects, back straight, mustache curled between his thumb and index finger, “ _ ‘A man speaks fondly only of his passing fancies, shadowed by the regret of the chances that he never tried to take.’ _ ”

In unison, both Pidge and Hunk gape in his direction. Pidge is sure that Hunk is thinking the exact same thing as she is—that Coran must have hit his head when the ship crashed, and he’s somehow crossed a few wires along the way. None of that made even one ounce of sense.

With a huff, he pivots on his heels, staring out of one of Green’s big windows as though the view is anything but the dark, empty hanger. 

“It means that a man will speak of inconsequential situations as though they were most wonderful thing in the world,” he explains, as though he’s talking to a couple of children, “but he’ll stay silent about all of the most important mistakes that he’s made. I feel that this phrase suits Lance quite well, wouldn’t you say? In a roundabout way. He complains about each of you ruining his chances to flirt with all of the female aliens that we encounter, but he’ll never confront the fact that they’re just a diversion from his obvious feelings for Keith.”

Pidge raises a brow. That seems to be a bit of a stretch, and she still isn’t entirely confident that Coran didn’t hit his head.

“O-okay, okay, here’s another one then, since you’re so picky with anecdotes tonight,” Coran is tugging just a little too roughly at his mustache now, ruffling it more than he’s actually managing it. “ _ ‘Hatred in its purest form is misdirected love.’ _ ”

“That’s kind of a sick saying, isn’t it?” Hunk asks suddenly, and Coran jumps a little, as though he forgot that he was there, “I mean, I guess it’s true in some cases, but do your people really believe that, say, Zarkon—you know, the guy who’s trying to _murder the entire universe_ —actually really loves all of us?”

Pidge sits back more comfortably in her seat, fiddling with the knobs on the sides as though they’ll actually do anything.

“No, he’s saying that Zarkon probably loves  _ something _ , and he probably hates the rest of the universe because of that love, right? Like he loves the other Galra so much that he wants them to be the only thing that exists. Or he loves power so much that he'd destroy everything in order to become the most powerful being in the universe. Everyone else hates the Galra because they love their people. But then it also means that Lance thought that he hated Keith, but that’s only because he loved him too much to realize what he was feeling.”

Coran nods, and Pidge gets the feeling that his smile is more of the type that she used to give her dog when he did a really fancy trick, and not so much the sort of pride that she really deserves. With a shake of her head, she decides to ignore it. A few thousand years of life and centuries of technological leaps ahead of humanity might give him the right to be so haughty, and it’s not like she’s going to change his mind anyway. Instead, she continues her speech.

“It basically just means that love in and of itself is faulty, right? It’s flawed, and it makes people do really ugly things. So there really isn’t much of a difference between love and hate. If anything, hate is just a more intense version of it.”

Hunk shrugs, letting out a groan and rubbing his face with both hands.

“Alright, alright, I get it,” he says miserably, “I thought fighting Zarkon wouldn’t involve any English lessons, but I guess I was wrong. So love and hate are the same, whatever! That doesn’t really tell us if you knew that Lance wanted to date Keith, dude. You didn’t even answer the question.”

Coran presses his palm against the window, peering out into the darkness with squinted eyes. For a moment, Pidge catches the glimpse of a man tired of war—ragged from a lifetime of fighting with no clear ending in sight. For a moment, she can feel her heart ache for him.

“At first, no, I didn’t realize,” he says softly, smiling just a little, “But to be fair, I wasn’t entirely sure if your race had evolved in a manner that allowed for males to mate with other males. What do you call that in your primitive language again?”

Pidge rolls her eyes.

“ _ Homosexuality _ . But honestly, I think Keith’s the only homosexual one. Lance kinda seems like he goes both ways.”

Coran tilts his head, turning his confused gaze in her direction once more, but Hunk interrupts them before she gets a chance to explain. Which is all well and good, because she doesn’t really feel like talking about the nuances of human sexuality anyway. She’s only sixteen, for God’s sake! She shouldn’t have to be the authority on this when the furthest she’s gotten with anyone is holding hands with a random girl on Komium.

And, of course, she shouldn’t have had to spend her sweet sixteen cramped on a ship with two aliens and a bunch of losers from the Garrison in the first place. 

It doesn’t really matter that everyone had been as supportive and thoughtful as they could have been. Lance and Hunk had spent weeks putting together spare parts around the ship to build her a miniature version of a “fancy sports car”—as they’d called it, even though the lumpy, malformed thing that they presented to her probably wouldn’t have made it out of her driveway back home if it had been real. Keith had pulled her into the training deck and spent the day teaching her every self-defense move that he knew, and Shiro, Coran, and Allura had made it stop to the first planet with a similar ecosystem to Earth’s to collect as much delicious food as they could in order to make her a nice dinner.

A big plate of food goo with sixteen makeshift candles on top of it—compliments of Hunk. A table full of people who love her, all wishing her a happy sixteenth year.

She wasn’t even sure if it was even really her birthday, but it felt enough like a real one anyway.

And it was good—it was really, really good. Everyone had blown her admittedly low expectations right out of the water, but that didn’t stop her from feeling dreadfully lonely. It didn’t stop her from thinking about her mother all alone back home, wondering if her daughter was still alive out there somewhere, and if her husband and son were ever coming home.

She curses quietly, hating herself for thinking about this now—especially as Hunk looks at her for the answer to a question that he’d apparently just finished interrupting Coran to ask. 

“U-uh, what? Sorry, I… I was thinking about, uh… about the Lions.”

It’s a shoddy excuse, but thankfully Hunk knows better than to press the issue any further. He’s nosy enough that he probably already knows what she was thinking about anyway.

“Well, I was obviously asking when you figured out that Lance had a thing for Keith, dude. Seriously, where else did you think that I was going with all of this?”

A smile works its way over her lips as she thinks back to it. She folds her hands over her lap, swiveling the chair around to face all of them. 

“Who, me?” she asks slyly, tucking one leg under the other, “I’ve known all along.”

 

* * *

 

Allura pauses as she reaches the ends of her hair, letting out a long, tired breath as one of the mice passes her another tie. She’s worked her way through nearly a dozen braids now, and still, there’s no sign that they’re getting out of here any time soon.

She thanks the mouse quietly, tying off the braid and starting another. She makes a point of ignoring Shiro as he paces—more for his own state of mind than hers, really. In moments like this, she’s learned that it’s more comforting to talk about something, to get her mind off of whatever could be troubling her, but at this moment, it’s as though Shiro is a steel door. No matter how much she prods, he only closes tighter and tighter within himself.

The mice have offered multiple times to venture out of the control room and see if everyone else is okay, but it’s too dangerous. A few hours ago, Shiro had received a transmission from Lance’s headset to his, but it was only static. He’d heard the mumbles of words, the strain in Lance’s voice calling out for someone,  _ anyone _ —but nothing else had come through. Shiro had cursed then, losing his cool for the first time that Allura could ever recall. 

He’d practically punted his helmet across the room, leaving a large, head-shaped dent in the wall behind the main control panel. She’d forced down a reprimand at that, because she’d understood the stress that he must have been under then—how it would have felt to have heard them, to feel as though communication were right at the tips of her fingers before being torn away. They’d only barely kept the Galra at bay long enough for them to give up earlier. She’d heard them as they’d left, jeering through the door.   
  


__ “If you’re alive in there, Altean scum, we got your Paladins! Red and Blue are coming with us!”  
  


__ “While you hide like cowards, your weakened soldiers will die by our hand. Are your Paladins really so expendable that you won’t even attempt to save them?”  
  


And more curiously, before the voices had faded away completely, she’d heard the third and apparently final Galra soldier ask,  _ “Didn’t Thace say to leave the Red one alone? What was that about anyway?” _

Shiro turns abruptly on his heel, muttering to himself with his arms crossed tightly over his chest. She can’t even imagine the whirlwind of self-deprecation currently swirling around in his thoughts, and she wants nothing more than to calm him down. 

Working her way through another braid, she finally gathers the courage to speak.

“Shiro,” she nearly whispers, furrowing her brow and tugging nervously at her hair, “A lot of time has passed. Please come and sit down.”

The mice squeak as he freezes in place. They’re telling her that sometimes Shiro mutters like that in his sleep. They’re saying that sometimes he wakes up screaming. She puts a hand up to silence them. She doesn’t want to hear this right now.

“Shiro, please—”

“I-I am, alright? I’m—I’m just… They’re all out there right now. They’re fighting for their lives and we’re just sitting here. I should have done something, Princess. I should have—”

“That’s enough,” She’s staring right at him now, her gaze unflinching. “We did everything that we could, Shiro. And they’re not children. They’re highly trained Paladins of Voltron. If anyone can handle themselves in this situation, it’s all of them.”

With a heavy sigh, Shiro pads forward, dropping himself down next to her. His eyes are still troubled, muscles stiff within his armor. He stares off into the shadows of the control room with a haunted, empty frown. 

She lets go of her hair, allowing the half-finished braid to uncoil as she scoots closer to Shiro. Despite her nervousness, she wraps an arm around his shoulder, resting her head against him and closing her eyes.

“It will be okay, Shiro,” she hums, relishing the way that his entire body slackens beneath her touch, the way that he reaches forward and twines his fingers with hers. “If Lance was trying to contact us, that means that he has access to his helmet. Which also means that the Galra don't have him anymore. And Lance wouldn’t leave without Keith, Shiro. You know that.”

She can feel him nod. His grip around her hand tightens ever-so slightly. 

“Can you feel the Lions too?” 

His voice is so feeble that it’s barely even there at all. 

“Yes. I can hear them, very slightly. I think they’re trying to tell me that Pidge and the others are safe. The Green Lion is slowly coming back to life. I think they’re fixing her.”

They don’t talk for a long time after that. They only sit together, breathing in and breathing out, and finding comfort in each other’s company.

Allura wonders if this could be enough for Shiro—if anything could ever be enough to heal him after everything that he’s been through.

She doesn’t know. She isn’t sure if things will ever be okay.

But she wants to try.

 

* * *

 

Lance stiffens uncomfortably—in his back, in his arms, his legs and in other, far more unfortunate places.

There was a fight earlier, or maybe more of an argument, when Keith had lead him into the cave and slid under the disgusting makeshift blanket, ushering him forward with the invitation of open arms. 

And he just _had_ to be the moron who found a problem with that, of course. He just  _ had _ to allow his bullshit macho facade get in the way of just accepting that Keith wanted to be the big spoon like a normal fucking person. They’d bickered briefly, and Keith had promptly relented, saying something about how it shouldn’t have even been a big deal, it would be warmer as the little spoon and Lance didn’t have a lot of meat on him anyway, and of course— _ of fucking course _ , Lance couldn’t just let that go. 

He had to prove to Keith, and to himself, that he was man enough to be  _ the man _ here. 

And now he’s suffering through a boner the size of fucking _ Havana _ —harder than diamonds, more torturous than whatever the Galra could have done to them if that Thace guy hadn’t saved their asses. He can’t help but wonder if this is his punishment for honestly thinking that being the big spoon would make this any less gay.

He squirms a little, breath hitching as he gets a nice, big whiff of Keith’s stupid, fruity shampoo. It’s tainted by the coppery bite of blood, the salt of sweat, and the ashy scent of the dirt here—and Lance hates himself for considering that this manly horseshit is actually making him even hornier. God, he was such a lady’s man back home! What happened?! When did he get to the point where thinking of this mullet-headed dweeb braving the wilderness and looking oh-so good doing it actually got him more hot and bothered than flirting with some fine alien thing that he could possibly make curse in more than one indecipherable language?

Although, Keith actually knows more than one language. Lance is sure that if he tried hard enough, he could get him moaning in every tongue he knows—

“Dude, I told you to take off your bayard. I took off my pack, didn’t I? I even got rid of my knife. Seriously, stop stabbing me with it.”

As though it were possible, Lance tenses even further. He almost snaps that he did, in fact, remove his bayard and set it to the side—Keith even saw him do it—and there’s no way that it could be stabbing him right now from two feet away. But then the realization dawns on him, and he honestly has no idea how to react.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, really, Keith doesn’t give him the chance to put his foot in his mouth, because he’s sitting up a little and peering over at the pile of their things. He pauses in confusion, fumbling with his various weapons and lame fannypack, surely wondering what in the Hell Lance is managing to poke him with when they removed everything sharp from their persons. 

“Seriously, Lance, just hand it over, okay? Whatever it is, I promise you don’t need it. If something comes in here, our stuff is literally right here. You don’t need to keep stabbing me with shit.”

Lance pulls his hips back, cursing every single force in the universe for putting him in this situation. The camping, sure, it sucks, but he can deal with it. Fighting Galra soldiers isn’t even that bad. But lying here, desperately trying to cover his tracks after accidentally stabbing Keith in the ass with his erection? Yeah, this is definitely what Hell feels like. 

“Lance, seriously,” Keith rolls over, glaring at him through the darkness, “What’s your problem? Just give it here, alright? Fuck, I can’t sleep if you keep poking me with that.”

He reaches under the blankets, searching for the “weapon” that he’s sure that Lance is hiding from him. In a sick, twisted sort of way, this situation might actually be funny, Lance thinks. If only it were happening to someone else.

In a move straight out of Lance’s darkest nightmares (and raunchiest dreams), Keith grasps his erection firmly through the skintight material of his under-armor. He tugs just a little, thankfully gently enough that it doesn’t hurt (no, on the contrary, it feels so good that Lance has to bite his lip to keep from making any horrifying noises). Lance tries to tell himself that Keith’s confusion is hilarious. 

But really, in this moment, he only wants to melt into a puddle and seep through the pebbles on the ground, disappearing from existence for the rest of eternity.

Keith stills, brows low. He stares at the darkness under the blanket for what feels like fifteen eternities.

“Oh,” he says simply, but he still doesn’t let go, “That’s…  _ oh _ .”

Lance isn’t entirely sure what to say now. In all of his years at the Garrison, in all of their time training to pilot Voltron, no one ever covered how to react in a situation like this. He wonders if those stupid Altean sex books cover anything even remotely similar to this.

“Y-yeah, uh… could you maybe, um… Let go of my dick, dude?”

Keith cocks his head to the side, a horrible, spine-tingling, mind-boggling grin cracking open his lips.

“Is this why you wanted to be the big spoon?” he asks, and Lance feels his heart pound right out of his chest. This is what dying feels like, he thinks. This is what it feels like when one’s soul launches straight out of their earthly body. “I didn’t know sleeping outside got you so  _ riled up _ .”

This is it, he thinks. This is the end of him. This is the end of the Blue Paladin.

“I-I—it’s—it’s completely normal!” he cries, “Th-there’s nothing weird about it, okay?! It’s totally natural for a guy to get…  _ aroused _ when he’s pressed up against someone else, o-okay?!”

Keith laughs, and it’s beautiful. It’s a reviving, life-changing sound, but he hates it all the same.

“So you’re saying that you’d be hard even if you were cuddling with Hunk here? Or maybe Shiro? Or Allura?”

Lance shoots up, but Keith’s hand stays firmly in place. He thinks about putting some distance between them, but his body just won’t listen. Before he can even begin to think about a retort, Keith cuts him off.

“It’s okay,” he purrs, bringing himself up to Lance’s level, leaning forward and pressing a warm kiss against his lips, “You… you have the same effect on me.”

Keith kisses him again, but Lance’s head feels so light that he can barely focus. The hand gripping him through his spacesuit begins moving, gripping with more purpose, touching him in ways that he thought were only possible in his dirtiest of dreams. 

 

* * *

 

_ Katie Holt had begun her undercover mission to crack open the conspiracies lying with the Galaxy Garrison with the sole intention of getting the job done quickly, then burning every trail that she’d made along the way. She didn’t have time to mess around with forging friendships or even memorizing the names or faces of anyone who wasn’t absolutely essential to getting the job done. _

_ She didn’t have the energy to waste on anyone but her father and her brother. And so, she began the lonely task of pinpointing her kin within the endless void of the universe with no one but herself to rely on. _

_ Sometimes it was hard not to care too much about these people, but then she’d think about how no one else cared enough to ask questions about the Kerberos mission—about where her father had gone, where her brother had gone, what had happened to the pilot that everyone spoke so fondly of. They were all so wrapped up in their own meaningless existences that they didn’t even recognize themselves for what they really were: cattle, of course, being lined up for slaughter. Brainless, hopeless bovine ambling about this jailhouse as though they’d come here of their own free will—as though they’d accomplish anything here but earning themselves a fancy headstone for their families to bury them under. _

_ She’d think about her father then, when her thoughts ventured down such dark paths. _

“Careful, Katie-bug. If you keep thinking so hard about being an adult, you’ll forget to be a kid.”

_ Sometimes the memories of his words would make her laugh. They’d fill her with the determination to work harder, to get better, to rip apart this establishment and shake it harder and harder until the truth came tumbling out. Sometimes they’d make her so angry that even her veins felt the lick of the fire bursting uncontrollably from her heart.  _

_ And sometimes they just made her sad. Sometimes she’d find a quiet place to sit alone, and she’d allow herself to mourn. _

_ It was one of those nights, when the weight of the world sitting so firmly on her tiny shoulders had become too unbearable to handle, when she’d had the very first heart-to-heart with the fighter pilot from her team. _

_ He was a moron, really. She couldn’t honestly stand the guy. He was pompous and way too loud, always flirting so tactlessly with all of the girls in their class. He was a chauvinistic prick who probably wouldn’t even know what to do with a girl if one ever actually accepted his advances. That type of desperation just screamed “insecure virgin”. She could spot his shortcomings from a mile away. _

_ He was nothing like her father or Matt. He was nothing like any of the men who she grew up admiring.  _

_ She didn’t care about him at all. The engineer was nicer, but he was a spineless chickenshit. Neither of them were the sorts of people who she’d ever imagine asking to help her burn this place to the ground. She was sure that they’d rat her out if she even tried to clue them in on the nature of her stay here. _

_ She didn’t think about them much when they weren’t around. She started her days with a deep breath, and she willed herself to stay quiet and not say anything when Lance decided to get too cocky and wreck the simulator again.  _

_ So she was startled, to say the least, when the moron actually managed to track her down on the roof. From a guy like him, it was the very last thing that she’d ever expected. _

_ “Feelin’ homesick?” he’d asked casually, hands in his pockets, “It’s a little too cold out here for this ‘cool, loner anime dude’ thing you have going on, isn’t it?” _

_ She’d scoffed at that, telling him softly that she didn’t have any sort of “thing” going on. She just liked her own company. She didn’t need anyone else wasting her off-time. _

_ He’d laughed at that, pretending that he didn’t notice the photo that she was hiding in her coat—of herself and Matt, smiling together when he’d first joined the Garrison. _

_ “See, you say that, but that’s also something that some badass anime protagonist would say. Did you rehearse all of your cool lines, or do they just come to you naturally?” _

_ Rolling her eyes, she’d turned away. She thought that if she ignored him, maybe he’d get the hint and leave. He didn’t know that she was a girl, so maybe he wouldn’t waste his time with anyone who had nothing to “offer” him. She wasn’t entirely familiar with guys like him. She didn’t really know what made them tick. She was far too studious and tomboyish for all of the guys in her grade—which was fine with her, really. She didn’t like to waste her time on anyone who wasn’t willing to accept her the way that she was. _

_ Instead of leaving, Lance had taken a seat next to her, arms resting on top of his knees as he’d peered over the roof onto the courtyard below. She didn’t even know how he managed to get on the roof in the first place. It had taken her a considerable amount of minutes to break the lock system in order to sneak up there. _

_ “It’s fine in the daytime, isn’t it?” he’d asked, and she honestly had no idea what he was talking about, “Classes take a lot of focus, so you don’t have a ton of time to think about it. But we’re pretty far away, aren’t we? I don’t know where you’re from, but this place is a long way from home for me.” _

_ Her resolve had softened then. Despite everything, she wasn’t cold enough to rebuff someone who was opening themselves up to her so willingly. The ability to be vulnerable was one that she’d struggled to smother for a long, long time. And then, in that moment, she’d envied him for it. _

_ She’d envied a person who could still feel everything that their heart wanted them to feel—fully, with no guilt and no fear of repercussions. _

_ “This place,” he’d told her then, as though he didn’t comprehend the cogs turning slowly in her thoughts, “it’s pretty good at making you feel insignificant, isn’t it? You know, back home, everyone always told me that I was special, that I was meant for something.” _

_ He’d laughed then, like a wind-up toy on low battery, like a parrot expressing its sadness through the only words it knew. It would say that it wanted a cracker in a struggle to make itself heard. And the people would laugh, and they’d laugh, and they’d never understand that it just didn’t know how to tell them that it was dying. _

_ She’d shaken her head then, only because her metaphors were bordering on bizarre. She must have been tired. Or maybe Lance’s ridiculousness was rubbing off on her. _

_ “But I came here, you know, thinking that I’d blow everyone away with how awesome I was,” Another empty laugh. His eyes had burned like dying embers. Something deep within her chest had ached for him. “I didn’t. I didn’t even come close. This guy who used to go here—God, he was such a prick—he’d already went and impressed everyone so much that they thought that I didn’t have anything to offer.” _

_ She’d never encountered that sort of struggle. If she wasn’t as good as someone else, she’d worked and worked until she became better.  _

_ But sometimes, she thought, it wasn’t that easy. Sometimes you weren’t good enough to best the greatest person. Sometimes you weren’t good enough to save your father and brother and bring them home safe. _

_ “But I think he was messed up too, you know?” Lance had continued to talk, and Katie thought that maybe she didn’t mind listening. Somehow, all of this was making her feel less alone. “They kicked him out right before you got here. Real hush-hush, swept under the rug. Like one day he was here and they were all talking about how great he was, and the next day, it was like he’d never existed.” _

_ “Like the Kerberos pilots,” she’d interjected, before she could stop herself. _

_ And to her surprise, Lance had stiffened at that, eyes suddenly harder, gaze focusing further away. _

_ “Yeah,” he’d bitten out, “Just like the Kerberos pilots. This place chews you up and it spits you out. God, he—he lived and breathed this place. He was so passionate about it. It was like they plucked one of those guys right out of the Galaxy Garrison recruitment ads and stuck him in my class! I hated him so much, but he was… he was really good. Like he had all of this other stuff going for him, being handsome with a good body and, you know…” _

_ He’d motioned vaguely at the air then, a curious pinkness coloring his cheeks. _

_ “He always… smelled really nice, even though I don’t think anyone ever saw him take a bath. His stupid mullet looked like it was probably really soft. I bet the bastard used some kind of fancy shampoo. B-but, you know, uh… he had other shit going on! He could have been a model or something! He was really good at a ton of stuff! But he put his life into this school and they snuffed him out like he was nothing the second that he stopped being essential to them.” _

_ She’d made a mental note to research this guy. She’d told herself that she would look deeper into this.  _

_ But later, after Lance had ranted about this mysterious mullet-headed hotshot for the rest of the night, she’d realized that she’d never actually asked for his name. _

_ She’d been entirely too caught up in the realization that Lance was compensating for something else when he flirted with all of their female classmates. _

_ Lance McClain, without a doubt, wanted to do some pretty filthy things to that pilot. _

_ No wonder he was so broken up that the guy was gone. _

 

* * *

 

Keith’s lips are leaving trails of fire everywhere that they touch, and Lance is frozen under his unrelenting gaze. He isn’t sure if those two phrases really work that well together, but it feels that way anyway—a burst of contradicting sensations, a swirl of confusion mixed with arousal, mixed with so much disbelief that this is really, truly happening that his head is spinning wildly.

He tries to talk, but all that he can do is mumble embarrassing little noises as he squirms under Keith’s hands. He tries to move himself, if only so he can reciprocate, but his muscles seem entirely intent on betraying him tonight.

“I-it’s okay,” Keith huffs, breath hot and ragged against Lance’s damp, naked skin, “j-just enjoy it, okay?”

He isn’t even sure when he got naked, or how Keith managed to wriggle him free of the oppressive material of his suit without him so much as moving an inch. None of that really matters, in the grand scheme of things, not when Keith’s long, nimble fingers are wrapped around his erection. Not when his thumb just barely skims the head, smearing a dot of precum over his sensitive skin in a way that has him keening deep down in his throat.

Tingles of pleasure wash over him. His back arches, muscles so stiff and so lax, somehow all at the same time. There’s a pressure building steadily inside of him—far too soon for his own liking. He always told himself that he’d last longer if this sort of thing were ever to happen. He always thought that dreaming about this enough would make him better prepared.

Keith nips hard at his collarbone, dragging a hiss through his teeth. He’s breathing hard, he’s saying so many things so softly against Lance’s skin that he can barely decipher them above the drumming of his pulse in his ears.

“G-God, Lance,” Keith groans, burying his face in the center of Lance’s chest, “F-fuck, L-Lance— _ fuck _ —”

Realization hits Lance like a Galra warship shooting lasers through the castle’s particle barrier. As well as he can, he fights through the fog of pleasure, through the maddening sensation working up his spine as Keith begins pumping firmer and faster between his legs.

“K-Keith,” he all but moans, “K-Keith, a-are you—?”

Keith’s breath warms the sweat and the saliva on his skin. It works the tingle of pleasure all over him, blossoming goosebumps on his arms and shoulders, springing a heat so blistering to Lance’s cheeks that he worries that he might set the whole cave on fire.

“Of… of course I am,” Keith breathes, and Lance can feel him then—touching himself too, “How—how could I not?”

In his fantasy version of this event, or in all of the dreams that he’s had leading up to tonight, he would have flipped Keith over and taken him so gently that the entire universe would quake in the presence of his undying love. 

When he’s thought about actually getting naked with Keith, he’s always told himself that he would be the suavest motherfucker that Keith had ever witnessed—a true Casanova, the man to end all men, the greatest, the most romantic, the sexiest being to ever exist.

But his dreams aren’t real life, he realizes with disdain, and if Lance is positive that he’s good at anything, it’s disappointing himself.

With a force that he would have never thought possible, he cums harder than he ever has in his life. He’s shaking in the afterglow for a blur of time that might be minutes, might be hours, but he has no way to even know how much time he’s really lost. Keith is still working a hand between his own legs when he comes down from the high, but it’s slower now. Maybe even guilty, as though he’s wondering if it’s okay to keep touching himself now that Lance is done. 

And Lance promises that he’ll berate himself later. He tells himself that he’ll have plenty of time to erase this memory and rewrite it with one that makes him look like less of a loser. 

For now, he’s going to be strong. He’s going to be brave. He’s going to step up and do what needs to be done, despite the insecurities thrumming noisily inside of him. 

Right now, he’s going to be more like Keith. 

He plants a sloppy kiss against Keith’s lips. He murmurs something that must be words, because Keith is nodding like he understands. 

His hand snakes between them, pushing Keith’s away. 

And all alone on a foreign planet, tucked away in an abandoned cave in the dark, dangerous night—

Lance touches Keith for the first time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a confession to make...
> 
> I love Pidge.
> 
> So this is part two of Mothmas! I hope you guys are still with me here! This chapter was a little bit of... something. What was this anyway? hahaha  
> Oh well, we get some fun backstory on Rengaron. The Galaxy Garrison stuff is honestly some of my favorite stuff to write about, so hopefully you guys like reading about it too! 
> 
> Anyway, until next time, thank you for reading!


	18. A Keith in the Hand is Worth Two in the Bush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Lance "huddle for warmth". At least, that's what the kids are calling it these days.

Keith feels as though there isn’t enough air on all of Rengaron when Lance pins him down on the cold, stony ground beneath their shared blanket. His lungs sting with the need to breathe, as every inch of his skin vibrates with a nervous, overwhelming sort of excitement. In all of his dreams, after everything that they’ve been through together, he would have never imagined that this could ever really happen. And that had been fine, really, he hadn’t minded it at all.

He’d been content enough knowing that Lance didn’t actually despise him. He’d been perfectly comfortable fantasizing about touching him, if only to keep himself sane.

But this, God, this is something else entirely. Lance’s palms are sticky with sweat as they grip his wrists above his head. They’re softer than he would have expected. They’re smooth like velvet, so much gentler than anyone has ever touched him before. He knows that, if he were to try, he could break that hold easily, but he allows Lance to keep him here. This is all for show anyway, he thinks. This dominance display is purely an act—to get him riled up.

And fuck, it’s sure working.

Lance’s eyes are twin mirrors, dark and deep and blue as they cast the reflection of his own flushed face right back down at him. Lance’s lips are swollen and pink, his cheeks dusted with color. Neither of them mention the slick warmth of cum smeared across Keith’s palm and snaking down his arm.

Neither of them will address the fact that Keith’s erection is pressing hard and eager right between Lance’s thighs. His knees are holding down each of Keith’s legs, and the weight of them—the slight sting of Lance’s bones stabbing into him—isn’t nearly as painful as it is absolutely maddening. He isn’t entirely sure what’s come over him—why everything is suddenly so erotic, why Lance’s pitiful attempts at being rough with him are working better than any amount of actual roughness ever could.

Getting naked was easy, he thinks. It was easier than he would have anticipated. He’d always sort of blurred through that part when he’d dreamed about this—always imagining that their outfits just flew off, instead of both of them dragging themselves out of their clothing painfully slow. But Lance’s lips had mapped out each new part of him as he’d undressed him—first his stomach as he’d pulled his shirt up, then his chest, then his arms. He’d ghosted his fingers over Keith’s naked thighs as he’d pulled him out of his pants, making a curious sort of noise in the back of his throat when he’d noticed that he wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

“I lost them, remember?” Keith had asked, and for the first time, Lance didn’t even bother to say anything back.

The “afterwards”, where all of his dreams usually just delve straight into the action—this part is proving to be just a little bit more difficult.

His throat feels as though it’s been coated with sand. His tongue feels fat and useless in his mouth. He clenches and unclenches his hands, hips twitching beneath Lance’s knees, breath ragged and forced as he struggles to keep it even.

“Is—is this okay?” Lance asks feebly, brows low as he rocks his hips a little, as though Keith wouldn’t know exactly what he’s referring to, “are you okay with this?”

Keith remembers the posters littered about the dorms back on the Garrison—a myriad of mixed messages, ranging from a list of punishments for being caught doing inappropriate things with other cadets, to the _“Consent is Key”_ signs that some of the other guys used to make fun of. He wonders if Lance is thinking of those now too—if, for some reason, he thinks that Keith would allow him to get to this point if he really didn’t want this.

“Yeah,” he breathes, his voice far too rough and far too quiet for his liking, “i-it’s… yeah, it’s fine.”

 _“Fine”_ seems to bother Lance just as much as it bothers him. He kicks himself internally for not coming up with a better response, but really, what did Lance want him to say?

_“Yes Lance, please, please take me hard!”_

_“Lance, I want you, but please be gentle with my fragile virgin body!”_

_“Lance, I want you to bludgeon me with your rock-hard ham-mallet!”_

Well… yes, actually. Lance probably would have been pretty excited about any of those over that simple, unenthusiastic _“fine”_.

“I-I mean, uh, yeah, I… I want you to. Please.”

Lance’s brows raise at that, and Keith can feel him tremble just a little. He doesn’t move though, only sits and stares, as though he’s expecting for his hands to move on their own and take control of the situation. Keith considers reaching out and touching him, or maybe pulling him down into a kiss, but removing his hands from their flimsy restraints would kill the illusion, and he isn’t really sure if he’s willing to do that just yet.

He wonders why he’s never had any dreams about Lance tying him up and touching him. It seems to be driving him pretty crazy now.

“Uh, Lance,” He wriggles slightly in Lance’s hold, casting his stare down into the shadows between them, “Are you gonna—”

“Yes, okay—I-I just… let me think, alright?! I’ve never—I just don’t know—”

“Just touch my dick, dude, it’s right there. It’s not rocket science. You have one too. Haven’t you ever touched it before?”

Lance sends him a furious glare, tugging one of his hands away from Keith’s wrists and snaking it between them.

“I know how to touch a dick, okay? I just—I just didn’t… I didn’t want to just… grab it like that.”

Did he want to romance it a little first? Keith sighs, tipping his head back. He should be able to tell that it’s already there—no prep needed.

He can feel Lance’s shuffling around, tightening his grip around both of his wrists now. He moves one of his knees away, surely to give himself a little more stability, or maybe just to do something while he’s apparently so dead-set on not getting this over with.

“Lance,” Keith says suddenly, realizing only too late that maybe he should have asked earlier, “Do _you_ want this? You know, uh, if you’re not comfortable—”

“Just give me a minute, okay? God, I… I’m getting to it. Just let me… look at you for a second.”

That statement alone is heavy enough that it roots him silently in place. He feels hot now—hot enough that he wishes that Lance would throw off the blanket and let him get some air. And he can feel those eyes watching him, picking him apart, taking in all of his scars and all of his imperfections. He resists the urge to cross his legs, or just to cover himself up so Lance's eyes can stop being so goddamn greedy.

“I always thought your skin looked soft,” Lance murmurs, leaning forward to ghost his lips over Keith’s exposed collarbone, “It always kind of made me want to…”

His words trail off, or maybe they’re cut off—Keith can’t think clearly enough to be sure. He can feel the prickling of teeth digging into his skin, but it’s not hard enough to hurt.

At least, not hard enough to hurt more than he wants it to.

Finally, as though all that was stopping Lance from touching him was that one tortuous, exhilarating bite, his fingers hint at the base of Keith’s erection, trailing slowly toward the head without pressing down hard enough for it to feel like much of anything.

Even so, the hum of pleasure washes over him. His entire body feels as though it’s on fire. Eyes closed tight, lungs burning, spine tingling, he forces himself to sit still and just enjoy something, for the first time in his life.

Lance is sucking lightly at his throat, grasping at Keith with just a little more force. He’s pumping slowly. His pulse and Keith’s mingle into one hard thump between them. He releases Keith’s wrists, threading their fingers together above his head.

And Keith bites hard on his bottom lip, willing down the noises that threaten to break through.

Lance is pumping faster. Keith’s thoughts splinter off in a thousand different directions.

It feels good.

He’s so hot.

Lance’s skin is smooth, his lips are soft. His breath feels like scorching iron pressed against Keith’s throat. He’s speaking quietly, but his worlds are a blur of syllables and the sharp press of teeth. His eyes are blue gems sparkling in the night. His fingers, laced together with Keiths, are anchoring him down in this moment, keeping him here, reminding him again and again that this isn’t a dream that he’ll wake up from when the morning comes.

“K-Keith,” Lance breathes, glassy-eyed and red-faced, peering up with sweaty bangs and a smile on his face that melts any remaining neurons firing off in Keith’s brain, “C’mon, I… I wanna hear you, okay?”

A sharp nod, and Keith rattles off a moan. He feels himself pulled deeper and deeper into the euphoria of everything around him—of being touched for the first time in far too long, of being touched by _Lance_ , of all people.

Of feeling this love swelling in his chest, threatening to burst out of him at any second.

He cums just as Lance’s teeth drag against his neck again. He can feel the scrape of fingernails against his thighs with Lance’s clumsy ministrations, but it feels heavenly. As his thoughts skitter to a sudden halt, and the blur of his orgasm overwhelms his mind, he can only hope that he’ll find little marks all over his body to remind him that this really happened.

He fades back into reality gradually, and when the world stops spinning, he focuses on Lance above him. He’s staring down, mouth cracked open, eyes half-lidded and glassy in the dark. He’s watching Keith in a way that he’s never been looked at before—like there’s something about him that’s worth staring at. Like he’s the sort of person who could ever be worthy of another person’s attention for so long.

He’s never been insecure. He’s never worried about how he looked from another person’s point of view.

But in this moment, as Lance’s lips tug upwards into the smallest of smiles, he wonders why he’d never considered that it was possible to feel this beautiful.

“Are you okay, dude?” Lance asks, after some time has passed, “You… you came pretty hard.”

Keith nods, but his words refuse to work the way that he wants them to, so he stays quiet. He pulls his hands out of Lance’s grip, skin tingling back to life as he places both of his palms against Lance’s cheeks.

If he could speak right now, he’s sure that he’d say something that he’d regret. So maybe it’s for the best.

He pulls Lance down into a kiss.

 _‘I love you,’_ he might say.

_‘I love you more than anything else in the universe.’_

 

* * *

 

In the middle of the night, as Pidge wriggles around in discomfort in her seat, the Green Lion finally purrs to life.

She awakens with a start, back cracking as she straightens out and wipes the drool from her cheek. The lights overhead skitter on as the controls on the dashboard begin to light up one by one. Across the room, she hears Hunk snore sharply, and when she finds him in the corner, cuddled up quite hilariously with Coran, she has to laugh a little at how unknowing he is about everything going on around him.

If it were Keith or Shiro, and maybe even Lance, they’d have woken up immediately. She wonders how one goes about still being a deep sleeper in the middle of an intergalactic war.

In the back of her thoughts, she can feel the itching of Green trying to communicate with her. She’s telling her that they need to find Keith and Lance—they need to get Hunk to Yellow immediately. They need to contact Allura and Shiro.

“Are the Galra still around?” She asks the air, watching Hunk and Coran out of the corner of her eye, “Should we go there on foot, or would it be safer to ride there inside of you?”

The ideas feeding into her brain tell her that the Galra are still close. Without a second thought, she grabs the control sticks. Green purrs in contentment, playing through her mind’s eye which way she should go.

The lurch forward is what finally wakes Hunk and Coran—who both jump to life, clinging to each other and calling out fearfully. Hunk is sputtering incoherently. Coran pulls himself away finally and steadies himself on his feet.

“T-the lions work?!” He asks, panicked, groggy, “When did this happen—P-Pidge, what in Alfor’s name is going on?!”

Pidge laughs, crashing through throngs of Galra sentries and making her way through a gigantic hole cracked in the side of the ship. That can’t be good, but at least they know where the soldiers have come from.

“Calm down, guys, it’s fine,” she tells them, barely concealing her grin as she barrels through a few more groups of sentries, “Green just woke up. She said that everything’s gonna be okay!”

Through the reflection in the glass, she can see Hunk and Coran looking at each other with obvious worry in their frowns, but she doesn’t care enough to mention it. Finally, after everything that’s happened, they have the chance to fight back.

She has the chance to pull everyone together, and save this planet once and for all.

 

* * *

 

_Lance awakens in a soft bed of seaweed and damp ocean sand. The sun filters through the canopy of palm trees overhead, peeking down onto his skin like a kaleidoscope of yellows and whites burning against his eyelids. With a yawn, he pushes himself up with his palms against the sand, relishing the feeling of it—spongy and warm between his fingers._

_As his eyes begin to to focus on the world before him, he realizes that he’s woken up on the jagged hillside overlooking the beach, just outside of his hometown. He remembers spending hours and hours out here for a little alone time when he was a kid. He remembers the day that he drifted off into sleep in this very spot, under the hot blanket of the sun, with the breeze gently kissing his cheeks, and how his mother had panicked and sent all of his family out looking for him until he finally made his way home._

_God, he’d gotten into so much trouble for that one. He smiles as he thinks about it now, but back then, her wrath had felt like the inescapable grasp of the devil himself, thirsty for the blood of unruly children._

_Finally, he notices the dark spot against the blues and grays of the horizon, standing still at the edge of the cliff._

_He pulls himself to his knees, dragging an arm above his eyes to shield them from the sun. He can barely make out movement from the shadowy figure—the bellowing of loose clothes in the breeze, the long hair catching in the wind and reaching out like dark moss against the ocean’s surface._

_It’s Keith, he realizes, standing so dangerously close to the edge, watching as the sun rises higher and higher into the sky._

_Before he can stop himself, he’s on his feet, moving forward. It feels as though he’s walking through molasses, dragging himself forward against the bindings of dream logic, he’s sure. This is all way too weird to be real, after all._

_“Keith?” he calls out, cupping his hands around his mouth to amplify the sound, “Keith, what are you doing?!”_

_The crashing of the waves below and the whistling of the wind through the trees and the grass is deafening, and his voice is lost in the whirlwind of familiar sounds. Seagulls cry out far overhead, as the ships and the barges out in the water play their sirens and ring their bells. He pauses for only a moment, overwhelmed by his own nostalgia. His throat feels tight. His eyes sting with the prickle of tears. He wonders if he can reach his family in this dream—if only for a moment, he can see his mother’s face again._

_But Keith is turning slowly. His hair is whipping in the wind, and there’s a smile so soft against his lips that Lance’s train of thought goes out like wet fingers smothering a flame._

_“Lance,” Keith says, and his voice is barely above a whisper, but it sounds like his words are crawling around the inside of Lance’s skull, “I’m so happy, Lance. You make me so happy.”_

_Lance feels as though his muscles are melting at lightening speed. He feels as though he’ll never be able to budge from this spot again. Keith’s cheeks are tinted pink, his eyes glassy with vivid color bleeding through the dull blues and grays of this memory world._

_Lance might wonder what this dream is trying to tell him, if he could concentrate on anything but Keith’s beautiful smile._

_Keith is drawing nearer to him now, resting his hands on Lance’s shoulders. His smile drops only a little, and his eyes soften—sad now, tired._

_“I love you, Lance,” he breathes, forehead pressing against Lance’s, breath hot against his cheeks. “But I have to tell you something. Lance, I’m not like you, okay? There’s something—I’m—I’m not—”_  


Lance jolts awake, cursing quietly as his head whips around in the dark. Wide-eyed, he takes in the dark corners of the cave, the sunlight just barely beginning to hint through the trees, Keith opening groggy eyes beneath him, glaring at him through the night.

“Lance… what…?”

Lance runs a hand over his face, wiping away the cold sweat. Keith’s arms are wrapped loosely around his waist, his eyes disgruntled slits in the dark.

“Sorry, I, uh. I had… a bad dream.”

It’s a lie, of course, but he can’t exactly wrap his mind around what that dream was supposed to mean. Minus a few curveballs, so far they’re been pretty straightforward. Obviously his brain is trying to tell him that he wants to do filthy, filthy things to Keith. But now… What was Keith even going to say? He’s not _what_?

It’s not like he’s suspicious of anything right now. It’s not like Keith has been any weirder lately than usual.

He doesn’t have long to think about it, however, because an earth-shattering crash rings out through the woods outside of the cave. Keith jumps to his feet, immediately shaking off his exhaustion. He’s tugging on his pants and scrambling for his knife before Lance even has a second to compose himself.

Whatever is making such a ruckus outside is only getting closer. Keith is standing in front of him now, with his knife extended as though it alone could shield him from the force of whatever is threatening to attack them.

Lance scoots forward, grasping his bayard and fumbling with it as it morphs into form.

“Stay back,” Keith tells him, and he’s never been more offended in his life.

“I’m not some damsel in distress, you know!” he spits, pulling himself to his feet and doing a rather sloppy job of slipping into his suit, “If anything, you should be the one standing behind me! You didn’t even put your freaking armor on before we came here! One shot from the Galra and you’re dead!”

Keith sends him a fiery glare, the corners of his mouth pulled down in a toothy snarl. He looks as though he’s going to make some sort of retort—and really, Lance understands where he’s coming from, he really does. In this moment, as the trees part and the shadow of some unknown monster looms over their hiding place, he wants nothing more than to protect Keith from whatever unholy danger is hunting them down.

But they’re a team—they’re both part of the same team. And he understands that he needs to trust Keith to take care of himself, even if he wants nothing more than to protect him from harm.

They both flinch as the massive booms of a monster tearing through the forest shake the world around them, sending dust and loose pebbles crumbling to the cave’s floor. Lance coughs, shielding his eyes, and Keith pulls his bandana back over his mouth. They’re sitting ducks here. They’re completely, totally fucked if this thing is more than a Galra drone that’s already halfway dead.

He thinks back Keith’s soft smile in his dream. He thinks about that Thace guy apparently pardoning only Keith, but sending him away as well as part of the package. He thinks about the troubling warnings that his mind is constantly trying to send to him in sleep, and he wonders if maybe something so much bigger than the two of them is going on right now.

Reasonably, something so much bigger than the two of them is _always_ going on. The universal battle against Zarkon dwarfs their minuscule problems by a longshot, but that isn’t really what he’s thinking about right now.

Keith holds his weapon in front of him as though he’s ready to strike, and Lance only watches him closely, memorizing the soft outline of his features in the dark.

It was easy enough to admit to himself that he didn’t hate Keith. It might have been a little harder to admit that he’s in love with the guy.

But now, after everything, how difficult would it be to accept it if Keith were different than him? Maybe… if he were different than all of them—more similar to their shitty, purple-skinned enemies?

It doesn’t seem like that big of a deal now, as Keith spares him a look and tells him to pay attention. It seems as though it would be the most obvious thing in the world to love him unconditionally.

But what if Keith ended up on Zarkon’s side one day?

What then?

Could he love a Keith who wanted nothing more than to destroy the world that he longs to return to?

Could he really love someone who would betray their team?

Keith pushes him back, charges forward through the mouth of the cave.

And the world around Lance blurs and spins—an indecipherable swirl of colors, and darkness, and resonant sound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, Moth here again! This should be the last chapter of Mothmas, so I hope you guys are as stoked to have Lemon back next week as I am! 
> 
> This chapter is a little bit shorter than the rest, and I'm sorry about that! I don't really have a proper excuse aside from the holidays being pretty busy, so I hope you can forgive me!
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it! Happy New Year to everyone!


	19. Keith's in the Cradle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My child arrived just the other day.  
> He came to the world in the usual way.  
> But there were planets to catch, and foes to slay.  
> He learned to walk while I was away.

Just as Keith reaches the clearing, a deafening roar echoes through the trees. A gust of air blows back the twisted branches, the dying leaves. Through the shadows, in the soft light of the early morning sun peeking over the horizon, they’re finally able to make out the outline of the Green Lion stepping toward them.

Keith curses loudly, pocketing his knife and trudging back toward the cave. He’s muttering about _ ‘wasting his time’  _ even as he grabs his shirt from the ground and shoves it over his head—even as he straps that stupid fanny pack around his waist and collects the rest of his things.

Green is settling down in the dusty grass like a cat getting comfortable on a soft blanket, and Lance takes this time to put on the rest of his armor.

Eventually, when everyone seems to be better-prepared, they make their way back out into the clearing.

Pidge comes out of Green, bizarrely enough, with her hands covering her eyes.

Lance raises a brow and shares a look with Keith, before turning to watch as Coran and Hunk lumber after her, stretching out their limbs. Hunk’s eyes brighten as soon as he spots them, racing down the ramp to gather both of them in a huge, bone-crushing hug.

“ _Ooof_ , easy there, big guy,” Lance laughs even as he begins to lose all sensation in his arms. “You’re crushing my...everything.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Hunk wails, releasing them only somewhat, voice warbling and high pitched as he cries tears of joy, “But I’m just so happy and relieved to see you guys in one piece. You don’t even know, I was so worried. We  _ all  _ were.”

Hunk glances to the others - Coran, who is nodding in agreement, and Pidge, who is peeking cautiously between her fingers and making a noncommittal noise that sounds suspiciously like  _ ‘eh’ _ in response to Hunk.

She only breathes out a sigh as she addresses them and drops her hands. “Phew, okay. It’s safe to look. Thank god.”

Lance can’t really talk anymore in order to find out what the hell that is even supposed to mean. Pushed up tight next to him, Keith is making a bunch of strangled noises, sounding much like a squeaky toy caught between the jaws on an overexcited puppy.

“We’re definitely happy to see you, too,” Keith croaks, “but I think you’re puncturing my lungs, dude.”

Hunk drops them, apologizing again, before he dives straight into a panic laced recap of everything that’s gone down since they were MIA. Lance can barely focus on it all as he tries to catch his breath again, as his fear finally begins to wane into a relief that he can barely put into words that they didn’t find themselves face to face with another enemy bent on poisoning and kidnapping them.

“There’s no one left on this planet, dude,” Hunk tells them, nearly breathless by the time that he reaches the end of his story, “We looked. You know, while we were looking for you guys, we poked around in some villages—all gone. No one here at all. The Galra took out everyone.”

Keith stiffens next to him, gripping the hilt of his knife tightly in his fist. Lance understands that rage, because he feels it too. They’ve never encountered a planet like this before. They’ve never been faced with the realization that they’re far too late to save anyone.

“We need to get you guys to your lions,” Pidge interjects, fiddling with her glasses, “Then we need to find Shiro and Allura.”

Lance throws his hands in the air, slapping on a casual smile in hopes of lightening the mood.

“Then what are we standing around blabbering for?” he asks, grasping Keith by the arm and pulling him forward, “Let’s get the heck out of here and save the day!”

 

* * *

 

Through many desolate forests, over the jagged cliff-side and the ashen, polluted air, they sneak past throngs of Galra sentries into the hanger in the castle.

They board their lions, praying that whatever sickness had overcome Green so many hours ago has managed to fade away inside of their own ships.

Lance feels the connection of the other lions humming to life before Keith’s voice crackles through the speakers inside of Blue’s cockpit. Particularly, for whatever reason, Blue is whispering to him that the Red lion is finally awake again—that she’s okay, that everything is going to be fine. He wonders briefly if the lions worry about each other in the very same way that he worries about Keith when he goes charging into battle.

If maybe, secretly, Blue and Red have something of their own going on.

With an uncomfortable shake of his head, he decides that he doesn’t even want to think about how that might work. How would supernatural alien robotic lions even begin to think about getting it on?

With purpose and great restraint, he ignores the otherworldly voice in his head purring,  _ “Much easier than one would think, really.” _

“Lance, is your lion in working condition?” Keith’s voice rings out crisp and clear after much static, as his face flickers gradually onto the screen to Lance’s right. “Red and Yellow are ready to go.”

Lance nods, chasing away a new barrage of disturbing thoughts about robotic lions mounting like the lions on the discovery channel would back home.

“Y-yeah,” he croaks, “Everything seems to be working.”

A little too well, he thinks, glaring helplessly at a random spot in the ship, as though Blue might be able to see him from inside of her head. Regardless, her purring grows louder.

Maybe Allura was right about them all the way back in the beginning. Maybe they really are more like their lions than they’d ever stopped to notice.

He doesn’t have a lot of time to contemplate this, no matter how happy Blue seems to be now that he’s finally realizing it, because the others are making their way into the room—first Yellow, squeezing awkwardly through the narrow entrance, then Red and Green floating easily through.

“Alright,” Pidge pages into each of their ships, “Rover’s making his way through the ship, and apparently Shiro and Allura are trapped in the control room. There are Galra in the dining hall and the training deck, then a few more in the bathroom. There are about a dozen sentries surrounding the control room and a few more scattered around the hole in the side of the castle. So…”

Lance jerks back as a holographic map of the ship blips on mere inches from his face. He can see the rose-colored dots marking the sentries against the pale blue of the castle’s blueprints, then the bolder scarlet markings signifying the Galra soldiers themselves. A smaller, darker dot moves slowly through the halls, and it takes him only a moment to realize that it must be Rover sneaking along.

In the control room, he notices the purple blip of Shiro, and dark blue blip of Allura. For a moment, he wonders where Coran has went off to, until he notices his little marking inside of this very hanger, sitting closely to Hunk’s mark within the Yellow lion.

He isn’t really sure when Pidge managed to dig up the tech for this map, or when she integrated the technology into each of their lions to run the holograms. He wonders what else she’s slipped in and installed when he wasn’t paying attention, and despite the discomfort sitting heavily in the pits of his belly, he tries to tell himself that she wouldn’t add anything harmful to his lion.

Not even for a laugh, he tells himself, even though he isn’t entirely sure if that’s really true.

“So I’ll take the Galra near the hole,” Hunk volunteers, and Lance can hear Coran saying something contrary in the background, even though he can’t quite make it out. “No, no dude—No, we’re not going for Allura, okay? We’re not fast enough. Keith’s the fastest. He should be the one to fly in there and get Shiro to his lion as soon as possible.”

“Lance, you go with Keith,” Pidge says, pointedly interjecting in the middle of Hunk and Coran’s argument. “Cover him, okay? Just concentrate on taking out as many Galra as you can. I’m going to work on taking out the enemies around the ship. If I can clear them out, I’ll try to fix as much damage as I can get to.”

Lance agrees, allowing his gaze to trail over to Keith’s face on his screen. He’s listening intently as Pidge tells him to be careful. This is going to be dangerous, she says. He’s going to have to be really careful, to work hard not to allow his temper to get the best of him, to concentrate on the singular goal of rescuing Shiro and Allura without letting himself get carried away in the fight.

With an aggravated pull of his brows, and a scowl that Lance remembers from many arguments early in their days piloting Voltron, Keith agrees breathlessly, throwing a hand in the air.

“I got it, Pidge,” he huffs, pulling back the control shafts for Red and lifting her up into the air, “I’ve been doing this just as long as you have. I’m not a little kid, okay? I can do a goddamn mission without getting pissed off.”

Before the speakers cut out, Lance can hear Hunk say,  _ “Clearly” _ in a sarcastic tone that has laughter bubbling in his throat. He has faith in Keith, of course, but he’s not making a good case for himself so far.

When they break away into their separate groups, Lance leads the way. He blasts away a few random sentries, zeroing in his vision on anything that might be a threat as Keith moves close behind him. There’s a nervous energy popping between them, a whole lot of unspoken words and fears that neither of them are quite willing to admit.

It was much easier doing these rescue missions when they didn’t care as much, he thinks, but then he isn’t entirely sure when that was. When did Keith start being so important to him? Was there ever a time when he wouldn’t have given a damn if he’d gotten hurt?

They draw nearer to Shiro and Allura, and the further they go, the more enemies they run into. He can see the door at the very end of the long, winding hallway. Keith’s voice slices through the static of lasers and the clamoring of the ship caving in around them, telling him that he’s going to make a run for it—to cover him and get out as soon as he’s done.

A dozen more sentries charge around the corner. The ship around them looks nothing like home anymore. It looks like a warzone, which he shouldn’t have been surprised to stumble into. But the sight of it—the hall where he’d almost kissed Keith under the mistletoe buried under a pile of the castle’s ceiling. The dining hall where they’d shared so many breakfasts up in flames.

The training deck where Keith had straddled him in the darkness, flickering with electricity, cracked open and threatening to collapse.

It doesn’t make him as sad as he’d expected. In this moment, it only makes him boil with rage.

He springs into action, crushing sentries below Blue’s feet, tearing them to shreds in her powerful jaws. He’s so filled with anger that he doesn’t even stop to tell Keith to be careful, and he doesn’t even think about it until he’s already gone.

He can hear the explosive bang of the control room door blasting open somewhere beside him. He tries to focus on the sentries around him, freezing a few where they stand, barreling over others with a flick of Blue’s monstrous tail. It’s easy enough work, for now, but he can’t help but feel like it’s all  _ too _ easy.

His paranoia gets the best of him and he swivels Blue around, squinting through the dust in a desperate attempt to make out Red’s form climbing through the hole in the wall. He catches a briefest glimpse of metal glinting through the mess, and with much relief, he turns back to the task at hand.

Four more sentries down, and the walls around him begin to vibrate as something much larger charges forward. Through the dust and the broken pieces of the castle falling down all around him, Lance sees something large and dark crawling through down the hallway. It almost seems to be some sort of gigantic insect—talons surely twenty feet long reaching forward and stabbing into the floor to drag its humongous body along. It’s sleek black, like a gaping, empty void of nothingness eating through the wreckage. Even the windows surely hiding somewhere on the front are blacked out. He can’t see anyone inside looking out.

A voice booms from the creature—the machine—whatever the hell it is.

“Surrender now and you might be spared,” Emotionless and to the point, he recognizes this voice as the one that broadcasted to them at the beginning of the ambush. “If you refuse to comply with our demands, prepare to be annihilated.”

It sounds like a line from some cheesy 80’s sci-fi movie. As the blur of Red zips past his peripherals, Lance leans forward in his chair, a cocky grin spreading out over his face.

He wishes more than anything that these lions came equipped with loudspeakers. If they did, he knows with absolute certainty that he’d be able to come up with some cool one-liner that would have Keith stopping in his tracks to swoon at how absolutely awesome his new boyfriend is, that would have this alien bastard shaking in his stupid alien boots.

_ “And what about the third option?”  _ he might ask _ , “The one where I kick ass and take names?” _

Equipped with this new rush of adrenaline, he steers Blue forward, charging his ice missile, rearing for battle, and hoping deep in the back of his mind that Keith can manage to get Shiro to his lion safely.

 

* * *

 

Shiro and Allura climb out of Red, stopping only for a moment so Shiro can rest his hand against Keith’s shoulder, smiling down at him with obvious worry in his eyes.

“Thank you,” he says softly, as Allura watches them quietly, knowingly, “I’m very proud of all of you, I hope you know that. Now we need to focus on reclaiming the ship, so be careful, okay? The Galra have plenty more tricks up their sleeves.”

Keith nods, settling back in his seat as he watches the other two leave. Within moments, Black comes to life, purring so loudly that the sound of it ricocheting off of the open, empty walls of the hanger is nearly deafening.

With a deep breath, he steers Red around, intent on finding Lance again and helping him take down whatever the Hell that creature was in the hall. He’d seemed as though he had it covered, but…

He shakes his head. Lance can take care of himself. It’ll be better for everyone if he focuses on taking out other enemies, stronger enemies lurking in the halls.

The Black lion squeezes through the exit, soaring off into another half-destroyed hall. And Keith sits still for a moment, just staring at the emptiness, preparing himself for the struggle that’s sure to come.

With another long sigh, he finally manages to follow through the same way that Shiro left, and eventually, he finds himself outside—face to face with a miniature militia of Galra ships, just as the sun takes its place high in the morning sky.

 

* * *

 

Blue shutters as she takes another hit. Lance grinds his teeth, gripping tightly to the controls as he charges up for another laser attack. The screen to his right fizzles with electricity, as it has for the last few minutes—and there’s the image of a shadowed face flickering through the static every moment or so that he doesn’t recognize that Shiro, Keith, or anyone else from his team.

He isn’t sure if this guy is trying to communicate with him somehow, by hacking into his transmission system or something so painfully “Pidge-like”, and he doesn’t really know why he doesn’t just use his own intercom system for more of those cheesy one-sided monologues.

Maybe the guy just wants Lance to see that stupid, smug grin that’s surely plastered on his face right now, or maybe he gets off on watching his enemies sweating during a fight.

Whatever the reason, after taking another painful hit, Lance notices that the image of the Galra soldier is finally clearing up on his screen.

“Blue Paladin,” the soldier says slowly, and Lance can’t help but shiver at the low rumble of his voice, “This is my last warning. Surrender now and survive. Keep fighting and I will be forced to take you out.”

Lance snarls, breath caught in his throat. He fires another laser, clipping the monstrous ship in one of its many, spindly legs. The Galra soldier seems unaffected, but Lance can’t really make out much of anything from his face.

The image on the screen is dark and fuzzy. The soldier’s face is obscured by the generic Galra helmet hanging over his eyes. He’s bigger than a lot of the enemies that they’ve faced—broad-shouldered and thick-necked. There’s a familiar air about him that Lance doesn’t quite understand—a cockiness and an explosive energy that seems so commonplace to him anymore.

It takes him a moment to understand why all of this feels so normal, but when he finally connects the dots, it only makes him feel sick to his stomach.

This alien reminds him of Keith. From the confidence, to the unwavering determination. From the seriousness of his threats to the subtle mannerisms that he uses when he speaks.

Lance growls, charging another laser, moving forward and knocking down a pillar in hopes of bringing the roof down.

It’s his paranoia getting the best of him. It’s all of this stress going to his head. He’s never been a superstitious person. He’s never put much stock into his dreams.

And now, of all times, he needs to remember that these little premonitions mean nothing at all.

The Galra soldier dodges his attacks easily, somehow, even in such a crowded space. He doesn’t move to attack, but only sits still, as though waiting for Lance to either forfeit or retreat. Lance does neither, and for the longest time, they simply stay there, watching each other through the screen.

Even this guy’s stubbornness is starting to remind him of Keith. This is getting ridiculous.

“You suit him,” the soldier says eventually, “Your willfulness rivals even his own.”

It takes Lance a moment to even comprehend what this is supposed to mean—but who is this guy even talking about? His Lion? Zarkon? Someone else entirely?

“The two of you were captured together. My men have told me that you had quite the interesting conversation while being held together.”

Lance freezes in place, fingers resting just above the laser controls. He feels as though his blood has been replaced with ice water, as though every inch of his skin has pushed up goose pimples, as though there is nothing worse that this soldier could have done than mention his time alone with Keith in the Galra holding cell.

“I—I—” The retort won’t come out. His mind is drawing a blank.

The memories come flooding back—of Keith, impervious to the Galra poison. Of Keith’s name alone releasing them from confinement. Of Keith activating Galra tech so long ago with just the touch of his hand.

Of Keith telling him that he never really knew his father—that the man was nothing more than the shadow of a mystery, ever-present in his own life.

Why do the Galra care about Keith, beyond his role as a Voltron paladin? Why did this guy—Thace, apparently—care enough about him to let him go?

The ice in his veins boils over into lava. The fear wracking through his bones calcifies into a rage so heavy that it roots him in place.

Where does this guy get off talking about Keith? Why does he think that it’s any of his business what they were talking about?

Why did he let them live?

“What the Hell do you want?!” Lance snarls, fists so tight around the control shafts and his knuckles pale. “Why the fuck is our business any of—of  _ your _ business?!”

The Galra soldier laughs, and he hates how familiar even that sounds. His mind flashes to Keith’s smiling face, to the small dimples against his cheeks, to the charming little flush brushed along his skin as he opens up and allows someone else to see his vulnerable side.

This man has taken those beautiful parts of Keith and turned them sour. That laughter, though so similar, is darker, and uglier coming from such an evil thing.

“What exactly is your relationship with the Red Paladin?” The soldier asks, instead of answering even one Goddamn question, instead of keeping his big nose where it belongs.

And Lance wants nothing more than to punch his idiotic face in. He wants nothing more than to march right into Zarkon’s lair and beat him silly for even allowing a soldier so absolutely infuriating to join his legion.

Instead, he only spits a response, because no matter how angry he is, the castle is already threatening to collapse on top of both of them. The walls around them shudder and shake. Dust falls from the ceiling, as pieces of metal and exposed, staticy wires topple down around them.

One more missed shot, and they could both be done for. If he isn’t absolutely careful, he won’t be around to finally put this asshole out of his misery once and for all.

“That’s none of your business!” he all-but shrieks, and he can tell by the responding smirk that his wimpiness isn’t lost in translation, “Leave him alone, okay?! Your beef is with me right now s-so stop talking about him! Just shut up!”

And instead of firing back—either a response or an attack—the alien only nods. His smirk fades into the strangest of smiles, and before Lance can even contemplate what that means, he’s backing away, down the hall where he came from.

“Take care of him,” the alien tells him as the image of his face fades into the static on his screen, “This universe is far too dangerous to go alone.”

As though Keith would ever need anyone to take care of him.

Lance smiles, sardonic and exhausted from his rage.

As though Keith ever needed anyone at all.

 

* * *

 

Keith barely manages to dodge another blow, as the warning lights flash overhead and the sirens pierce his eardrums.

He’s taken out only ten of the twenty or so ships surrounding him, and every time that he makes a sizable dent in the group, they’re joined by a dozen more. He’s heaving now, so overwhelmed that it’s getting hard to focus. He’s been struck from the sky, thrown around within the ship. The images of the enemies around him blur and multiply, and he wonders, in a small moment of weakness, if this is the end.

Eventually, he can make out the black dot of Shiro flying through the air, taking out a few more ships as he draws closer.

“Keith,” Shiro’s voice crackles through his broken intercom system, “Stand down. You’ve taken too much damage.”

A blip of Yellow hurls past, and Hunk barrels into a few more ships.

“Dude, seriously,” Hunk’s voice is barely recognizable through the hissing static, “We got this. Get out of here!”

And the Green lion arrives only moments later, as another throng of Galra ships appear far-off in the sky.

Before his intercom system fizzles out completely, he can hear Shiro yelling for him to leave. But he doesn’t listen—he can’t, because he knows that they’re lying. He knows that they can’t handle all of this alone.

And where is Lance? Is he okay? Is he still in the castle?

Red is barely staying airborne at this point, but even still, he presses forward. She’s prompting him to anyway, fully agreeing with his decision to fight until the very end.

He fires at another ship, successfully bringing it down. Red sustains more damage in the rear, falling a few hundred feet toward the ground before he regains control. Green and Yellow are moving in circles above him, trying to block him out of the fight.

But he flies around them easily, so much faster even when he’s damaged. Smoke billows up from Red’s wounds. He can hear the mechanical popping bubbling up from inside of her.

Another blow to the side. Someone’s voice is crackling through the intercom. He can see Blue moving through the air off in the distance, flying toward them, desperate and quick.

Another ship moves through the group of Galra: a massive black thing humming through the sky. The sunlight hits the window, illuminating the pilot inside.

He watches Keith as Red finally fizzles out to nothing. As she falls from the air and barrels down to the ground.

Time moves in slow motion. The world around him melts into colors, into pain, into the tremendous crash as Red hits the ground.

And everything is dark as the wind knocks out of him. As the sounds of battle ring out overhead.

He unbuckles his belt, coughs desperately into his hands, pulls his bandana over his mouth and ambles towards the exit in Red’s mouth.

When he kicks open the hatch, scrambles up onto Red’s mighty head, he peers up at the hundreds of ships overhead. The lions are being pushed back, further and further toward the castle. It seems that all of the Galra soldiers have moved out of the shadows to battle them here.

The biggest Galra ship—that large, black beetle in the sky—it veers downward, impervious to Voltron’s attacks. It draws nearer and nearer, laser cannons aimed right at Keith.

He feels nothing.

He raises his knife in the air, watching with hard, determined eyes.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing now, or why he’s doing this. All that he knows is that maybe this will help somehow. Maybe, if he can distract this ship for awhile, they can find a way to take it out.

The ship comes close enough that he can see the face of the alien inside. He breathes deeply, pushing his heart down in his throat. He lowers his arm, pointing his knife directly at the Galra soldier’s face.

And the soldier reaches away from the controls, pulling his helmet from his head. His eyes are blank and yellow, just as the rest of his kind. His frown is pulled low on his mouth, one thick brow raised in curiosity.

They watch each other—Keith rattled with nerves, waiting for the final blow.

The alien nods.

And suddenly, he smiles.

Keith feels as though the universe has flipped onto its side as the massive ship pulls away. Just like that, the gunfire overhead ceases, the ships begin to retreat.

The image of that Galra soldier stays burned in the back of his mind.

A heat spreads out in his chest as he thinks of it, but he doesn’t understand why.

The other lions hang high up in the air, watching as the Galra ships disappear into the horizon. The sky, streaked red. The air, thick and black and cold.

Keith shivers, lowers his knife.

And finally, after everything that he’s went through, he wonders what the Hell is going on.

 

* * *

 

Keith falls down the moment that the Galra ships fade into the atmosphere. Red’s gigantic body sits still in the wreckage, and Lance can’t focus on Blue’s voice worrying about her long enough to really wonder why.

He lands so quickly that he nearly topples over, Blue’s feet catching in the jagged landscape unevenly, pulling up dirt and stone as clouds of dust swirl out from underneath her. She lowers her head, allowing him to scramble out into the blinding fog, urging him forward as he runs toward the hulking, unmoving pile of the Red Lion.

He can hear the impact of the other lions landing as well—Shiro’s voice calling out to him, and then to Keith, as he grasps the edge of Red and begins pulling himself up to the top. The sun is beginning to set again. It’s been an entire day of fighting. It feels as though this battle only lasted a few minutes, when he thinks back to it—when he thinks about how slowly the minutes had dragged on when he’d found himself tucked safely in the oasis of Keith’s arms in that cave.

The climb is a blur of anxiety, of worry as he begins to see Keith’s shadowed figure dark against the colorful horizon. He pushes back thoughts of last night’s dreams—of Keith turning and smiling, of Keith beginning to tell him something that he still can’t quite understand.

When he finally reaches Red’s head, he slips a little on the rubble around him, on the small tracks of blood and the evening dew already settling over her dented frame. Keith flinches a little as he takes him into his arms, a pained smile spreading out over his lips.

“Did that really happen?” he asks, reaching up weakly to smear sweat and dirt across his forehead. “Did they really just… leave?”

Lance nods, laughing nervously, holding Keith close enough that he can make out every crease in his smile.

“What—” Keith coughs, tugging down that silly bandana over his lips and spitting up a blackened mixture of soot and mud, but he doesn’t stop grinning, “What a bunch of pussies.”

And Lance’s laughter becomes more real—because this is ridiculous. The Galra turned on their heel and left. They ran away right when they would have won the fight. When Keith had climbed out of his lion, knife raised heroically in the air, Lance was sure that it was the end of him. He’d felt the tremors of dread coiling around his heart, running cold in his veins as he’d waited for the final blow.

They all had, he thinks. They’d all known, in that moment, that it was the end of Keith, but here is he—battered and barely working, but he’s here. He’s alive.

And Lance doesn’t understand it at all.

He thinks about the fear swimming in Keith’s eyes in his dream. He thinks about the Galra poison that hadn’t worked on him at all.

And he wonders if Keith is thinking about it too—if he’s worried about any of this, or if he’s just happy to be alive.

“Come on, buddy,” Lance says softly, helping Keith to his feet, “Let’s get you cleaned up, okay? Let’s get you some water.”

Keith goes without complaint. He allows himself to be carried down. By the time that they make it to the bottom—thankfully without anything more than a little bit of slipping on the more prominent dents—everyone else is there to greet them. Shiro grasps Keith by the shoulders, asking him what in the world was going through his head when he’d climbed out of Red.

“We could have protected you,” he says, but the anger that should be behind his words is nothing but a weak, tired worry, “We can’t work as a team if you’re always going out of your way to put yourself in danger. You need to learn to rely on us, okay?”

Keith nods, weight slack against Lance’s shoulder. He brushes damp bangs from his eyes.

“They left, didn’t they? So it’s fine.”

Shiro raises a brow, obviously disgruntled by Keith’s complete disregard for the rules, but Allura places a hand on his shoulder, frowning up at him in a way that silences him immediately. With a sad smile, she turns to Lance and Keith, and Lance can’t help but wonder if she’s worried about Keith too—if she saw the way that the Galra looked at Keith before they left, if she’s wondering if there’s more to all of this than even Keith himself understands.

“Lance, why don’t you get Keith cleaned up? We need to work on repairing the castle.”

Keith breathes sharply, stiffens momentarily, but he allows Lance to pull him away. Lance searches around the area now that the dust has cleared, and there doesn’t really seem to be a place for either of them to settle down comfortably.

In the end, they find a small clearing a few hundred feet away from the ship. Hunk fetches some water from the destroyed remnants of the kitchen, and Coran brings them dusty towels that smear around the dirt more than they clear it away.

And Lance watches Keith quietly for a long time after that—the way that his fingers bump, clumsy and tired, against his skin, the way that his palms shake as he holds a glass to his face. The way that the small dots of blood against his clothes are dark and red, just like the rest of them, like a normal, healthy human being.

He thinks about the way that he’d spent so many hours and so many days daydreaming about ever reaching Keith’s level back at the Garrison, without ever even realizing that he probably had a lot of issues of his own. Lance had thought back then, that if he could be anything similar to Keith Kogane, that life would automatically be easier. Things would fall into place. People would love him just as much as he’d always yearned to be loved, and life would slip into the blurry haze of bliss for the rest of his days.

But now, watching as Keith struggles to stay awake as the rest of the team works to rebuild their home, he isn’t so sure about that anymore.

_ “Be careful what you wish for,” _ his mother would have told him, _ “you can’t always go back to the way things were once you get what you want.” _

And now he knows—oh God, does he know. When he was younger, all that he ever dreamed of was adventure, but now, he wants nothing more than to go back home.

Keith has long-since set his drink to the side, and now he’s tilting his head back and watching as the last of the daylight fades into the stars. Gradually, it’s become colder and colder, and even still in the tattered remains of his street clothes, he doesn’t seem all that cold at all. Lance wonders if he understands what kind of person he is.

If he understands that he’s the sort of person that Lance always aspired to be: strong with pure-intentions. A hero wanting no admiration, only doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do.

Finally, after even more time passes, Lance decides to break the silence.

"When I was a kid," He tells Keith, "the beach by my house had an algal bloom."   
  
Keith cocks his head to the side, brows drawn low in confusion as he bites down on the inside of his cheek. Lance smiles softly, pressing the weight of his upper body against his arms on his knees, peering out over the shadowy landscape as memories blossom deep in the depths of his mind.   
  
"You ever heard of that?" He asks. "An algal bloom? It's when the algae dissolves in the water and makes a bunch of foam on the surface. When I was a kid, I always wanted to play in it, but my mom said that it would dye my skin green."   
  
He laughs—long and low, clenching his fists around his knees.    
  
"It wouldn't actually, but it smelled awful. I’m sure she just didn’t want me to come home smelling like rotten algae. We weren't allowed to eat any fish until they tested the water. Sometimes it's toxic, you know. It can make you really sick if it's toxic."   
  
Keith watches silently, listening to Lance with the same look on his face that he used to wear when he was hyper-focused in class. When he actually managed to pay attention, his unwavering gaze had been enough to make even their most strong-willed of instructors a little nervous.

But now, with those diligent eyes watching him, Lance couldn’t feel more at home if he were sitting at his own kitchen table.   
  
"Well, uh, you see," Lance pauses to rethink where he was going with this, wondering if it's even worth saying at all anymore. "My mom used to say that some people are like algae, and some are like foam. Some people are strong enough not to dissolve in the water. Some people are the toxins killing the fish."   
  
"And you're the ocean," Keith says suddenly, so quiet that Lance can barely hear him at all, "you're the person holding everything together."

Lance can’t move an inch once Keith’s words actually work themselves out in his brain. He sits still—back straight, fingers stiff and white as they itch against the fabric of his pants—running through that sentence a thousand times a second in his mind, wondering if maybe Keith hadn’t meant to say it at all. Surely, he wouldn’t have said anything so deep, so terribly heavy, so easily. Especially to someone like Lance.

Surely, he would have rather skewered himself with his bayard than ever admit to anyone that Lance would be capable of holding _ anything _ together.

“Well, I—” Lance tries to articulate some sort of response—anything, really, if only to distract Keith from the heat rising to his cheeks, or the terrible trembling of his hands—but nothing wants to come out.

Keith doesn’t give him the chance to make an ass out of himself before he starts talking again, and Lance can’t figure out if that’s a blessing or a curse.

“Everyone’s always told me that I don’t care about people enough.”

Keith’s words hang heavily in the air between them—so thick and tangible that he might be able to reach out and touch them if he wanted to enough. It’s the understatement of the century, he thinks. The concept of Keith expressing any sort of worry or love over anything is enough to make him feel lightheaded.

Hell, if he hadn’t come out and admitted that he wanted to do some pretty filthy things to him, Lance wouldn’t have ever believed it.

“That—that’s not it though,” Keith adds quietly, worrying at the edges of his shirt with tired, dirty fingers, “I think… I think there was a time when… when I cared too much. I’d reach out—”

Those same dirty fingers extend out into the air before them, bending up as though to scoop up the night and drag it toward them. His eyes are hooded and dark, reflecting the inky sky as they peer off at some bad memory that he’s never quite managed to chase away. His brows draw low, a stiffness propping his cheek at an uncomfortable angle. He looks as though he’s struggling to articulate exactly which emotion is weighing him down right now.

With a sigh, he lowers his hand, allowing it to drop quietly to the dusty ground between his feet.

“I’d reach out,” he continues, somehow even quieter than before. Lance strains his ears to hear him. “But I couldn’t ever seem to make contact. You know in the movies, like uh, that one with the ghosts—they—the main character, you know, he tries to touch someone and they walk right through him. It’s… it’s kind of like that, I guess. Like—I’d try to talk to someone, or try to make some kind of…  _ connection _ , but it was kind of like I was a ghost. Like I wasn’t even speaking the same language at all.”

He laughs, tipping his head back as a depressing sort of smile cracks open his lips.

Bared here, in the cold and the night on an empty, desolate Rengaron—sitting in the aftermath of Galra genocide—as though this planet exists only as the punctuation at the end of a great, awful threat:  _ “This is what will happen to you if you keep going, Voltron. This is what awaits your home planet if you don’t lie down and accept your deaths quietly.” _ —Keith looks worn out. He looks tired.

He looks like a terrified teenage boy, struggling to piece together the reason why he was chosen to leave everything behind to save a world that never loved him at all.

“I decided that if people didn’t want to understand me, I’d stop worrying about understanding people.” Another laugh—Keith’s fingers are digging into the dirt and uprooting half-dead, unearthly gray grass.

“I mean, what’s the point, you know? No one really gives a shit if I’m a good pilot. That didn’t make anyone like me. That didn’t stop the Garrison from booting me out.

Lance feels a retort rising in his throat, but nothing dares slip past his lips. He’s trembling now, holding back the barrage of pitiful tears that threaten to spill down over his cheeks—shoving down the urge to lurch forward and take Keith into his arms.

“Shiro kind of got that,” Keith continues, eyelids so low that he almost seems to be dozing off, “But he had a lot of other stuff going on too. It’s not like I could have asked him how to talk to people. Sure, he’s good at it, but he’s not a miracle worker.”

He sits back as his words trail off, tossing his arms behind him to steady his weight as he takes in a deep breath, eyes suddenly open wide to take in the stars.

“When we started all of this, I really didn’t think that I’d get to know any of you. I figured that it was just another way to pass time, I guess. We’d do this big job and I’d go back to my place in the desert, forget all of you, just…  _ survive _ .”

Lance finally manages to force out sound, in the form of an awkward little chuckle that sounds more like he’s stifling a sneeze. He clears his throat loudly, and Keith turns—eyes still glazed with old memories, cheeks still flushed like they were back on Rengaron, when he’d whispered those heartbreaking little confessions into Lance’s skin and held him tightly as though he was worried that a reality so painless would slip right through his fingers.

“I-I kind of thought so too,” Lance admits, lacing his fingers together and digging the toes of his boots into the dirt, “I mean, I already knew Hunk pretty well, and me and Pidge were getting there. But I kind of assumed that we’d all go our separate ways when this was all over. I never really thought that I’d care so much, I guess. I never thought that I’d want to go wherever you guys go when I didn’t have to anymore.”

Keith smiles, flicking his gaze back up to the sky. He tilts his head to the side, resting the side of his face against his shoulder, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth.

“Yeah,” he sighs, “And I think we’re gonna stick together because of you.”

Lance chokes a little, finding it suddenly very hard to breathe correctly. He looks around quickly, wondering if maybe the Galra poison might still be churning through the air—but the night is as quiet as it is cold, and the air is so clear that it stings when he sucks in too hard. There aren’t really any excuses left for this anymore. Eventually, he muses, he’s going to have to accept that apparently Keith has liked him much, much more than he’s liked himself for a very long time.

“You don’t really understand me either,” Keith says, and Lance can barely stand to look at the little grin pressing up his lips as he drags his fingers through the dirt. “But you want to. I’ve never—I mean, I don’t… I don’t remember anyone giving me that much consideration. Sometimes I say things that are a little weird, I guess. Sometimes what I think and what I do gets a little crossed along the way—like, uh… Sometimes I want to tell you guys that I’m proud of you, but I end up pissing you off instead.”

He’s hyper-focused on the stars, and there’s a sharpness to his eyes that isn’t lost on Lance. He extends a hand, shaking a little as it makes contact with Keith’s shoulder—but Keith doesn’t shirk away. On the contrary, he leans into the touch.

“You know, I yelled at Pidge when she wanted to leave,” he says, “I told her that she was selfish for wanting to go. But what I really wanted to tell her was that I’d miss her—that I—I didn’t want her to leave us, because… she’s family. Because I care about her.”

He pulls his hands back into his lap, leaning to the side and resting his weight against Lance—which Lance appreciates, really, because it’s freezing out here, and the extra body heat would be nice even if he hadn’t been itching to take Keith into his arms since they started this conversation.

“I bet you could have told her that you’d miss her without messing it up. I bet you could have smoothed the entire thing over without anyone getting in a fight. Shiro’s a good leader, and Hunk is a good friend. Pidge is smart and Allura is brave. Coran is a good mentor. But no one holds us together like you do.”

Lance tenses, cheeks burning hot. He drapes an arm around Keith’s shoulder, biting his lip as he curses himself for not having a good line to lighten the mood here. It’s getting in dangerous territory now, and he really doesn’t want to ruin this by crying.

“You know, for a while there,” Keith just won’t stop talking, no matter how obvious it is that Lance is having a complete and utter meltdown right next to him. “I think I might have been jealous of you. Before I wanted to sleep with you, of course. I thought that if I could be more like you, maybe people would like me more. Maybe I wouldn’t have to try so hard.”

Lance feels reality melting around him. He feels as though he’s a teapot right before the water boils enough for the shrill push of air to make its way through the spout. He feels like Keith has reached deep down inside of him and dragged out his own secret confessions—as though, somehow, they’ve spent all this time wondering about each other, when they’ve really been exactly the same.

And that’s what it is, he realizes. They’ve tiptoed around these conversations, they’ve struggled to understand one another. They’ve clashed and they’ve bonded. They’ve had so many stupid misunderstandings.

But at the end of the day, they’re really not so different at all. They’re just two people—far too young to have touched planets far beyond the reach of human science. Far too young to have been ripped from the nest and thrust deep into the black heart of the universe.

Far too young to have found love within loneliness, within death, within this absolute despair.

But here they are, he thinks bitterly, tightening his grip around Keith’s shoulders and breathing out a shaky laugh. Here they are, sitting together on a broken planet in the aftermath of just another small battle against evil. Here they are finding comfort in each other’s arms.

Here they are—him and Keith. Together, finally. After so much time has passed.

Slowly, carefully, with much concentration, he cranes his neck to see Keith’s face, shuffling just a little to adjust the way that they’re sitting. He’s facing Keith now, somewhat, one arm around his shoulders while the other hand comes to rest against Keith’s arm. He looks down into those dark, half-lidded eyes, mapping out the dark circles and the ever-present exhaustion. And after some time passes, his gaze dips down to pink-kissed cheeks, to the dirt and dust smudged against his skin, to the open, inviting lips beckoning him forward.

His hand moves from Keith’s arm to his cheek, cupping it gently, drawing forward as his heart thunders in his chest. Keith looks up at him, waiting quietly, grasping his wrist in a cold, clammy hand.

And they watch each other for a moment, as though they’ve never done this before—as though everything on Rengaron had been a dream, as though last night had been a very lucid fantasy.

Lance leans forward, ghosts his lips over Keith’s. And Keith pushes against his, unfolding under his touch, twining his fingers in his hair just as he did on that dewy beach so many nights ago.

He forces out a ragged breath, pulls away slowly. Keith’s eyes flutter open, translucent in the night—alive with that familiar, overwhelming flame of determination, glowing with something so powerful and so absolutely deliberate that he feels rooted to the spot.

Keith pins him down with his eyes alone. Keith’s touch anchors him to this reality, to this planet, to this timeline where everything feels right in all of its wrongness, where he somehow feels whole a billion miles away from everyone who loves him.

And before he can stop himself, the words rattle from his lips.

“Keith… I—I love you.”

Keith’s eyes widen. His grip slackens and drops from Lance’s wrist.

A heartbeat passes, and Lance lurches away at lightning speed—an arm’s length away as he reaches out a fist and bumps Keith’s shoulder.

This is bad, he thinks. This is so bad. They’re not even dating! They haven’t even talked about this! Surely, Keith thinks that he’s crazy—surely, he’s just shoved his entire foot right into his mouth.

“I-I mean,” another bump against Keith’s shoulder, he turns away with a forced smile pulling up his lips, “I mean, I love you, man. Ha, you know, uh. You’re… you’re a good guy. A good… buddy. Love you, b-buddy.”

Keith raises a brow, frowning deeply before Lance tears his gaze away. His cheeks feel like they’re on fire, and somewhere in the distance, he can hear Pidge yelling,  _ “Oh my God, is he fucking kidding?!” _

Helplessly, he prays that she’s complaining about the ship, but deep down, he knows better.

What a colossal failure. He hasn’t fucked up so terribly since… well, the last time he tried to make a move on Keith and completely failed to go through with it.

He moves as though to stand up and pull himself out of this horrible tragedy altogether, but then Keith is grabbing him again, pulling him closer with so much force that he almost loses his balance and topples over. He’s breathless now, desperate to conserve as much face as he can after such a horrible blunder, but then Keith is kissing him again.

His lips are soft and dry and warm, cracked a little from the cold, pressing firmly against him with purpose that Lance can’t think straight enough to truly understand.

When he finally pulls away, Keith gazes up at him with sharp, prying eyes. His fist clenches tight against the soft underlayer of Lance’s space suit.

“That’s too bad,” Keith all but hisses, never flicking away his gaze, never faltering in the way that Lance always seems to at the last moment. “Because I love you, and it’s not even in a “buddy” sort of way.”

Far-off, he can hear Pidge cheering. He can hear Shiro’s little jab to be quiet and let them have their time alone. He can hear the howling of the wind and the chirping of creatures tucked away safely in the dying woods.

And Keith kisses him again, so gently that it almost hurts.

He melts into the touch, warm even in the chilling Rengaron winter.

And he’s not strong enough to return those words, not yet.

But he definitely feels it.

_ ‘I’d love you even if you were an alien,’ _ he tells himself,  _ ‘I’d love you even if one day, you end up on Zarkon’s side.’ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I believe there are a few "psych!"s in order, or maybe some more dated "I bet you thought you'd seen the last of me"s, but anyway, Moth here again! Reporting in for chapter 19!
> 
> So this began as a collab chapter, because it was a lot to cover, but some things happened and we realized that chapter-collabs are hard as hell, so... here I am! There's a Lemon part hiding in there somewhere, and if you can point it out, we'll like... have a lot of respect for you or something.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you guys liked it! This one was super fun to write! (I feel like I say that too much. Do I say that too much?)


	20. 3rd Planet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Universe is shaped exactly like the Earth

 

When they all trudge forwards and decide to inspect the damage of the main parts of the castle, for a long time, all they can seem to do is stare at the wreckage, words caught in their throats. The wind blows sharp and cold over the gritty, deserted landscape of Rengaron and through the exposed walls, leaving haunting creaks and groans whistling through the cracks eerily.  Keith feels a chill deep in his bones, deep in his chest then, that probably doesn’t have as much to do with the cold as it does with the leftover emotional highs of all that just happened.

 

His head is reeling from so many different things - Lance confessing in his own typical Lance way, the thrill of the fight and the pain still throbbing dully throughout his body. He thinks about wrecking Red and the wave of guilt and panic that seemed to transfer directly into his mind from their connection, how Blue had helped pull her into the shelter of her own hangar, so carefully and tenderly that it only reminds him of how similar she and Lance really are. He thinks about staring into sharp, yellow eyes in the distance that seemed to look at him not with malice, but with…

 

Keith frowns as he tries to put a word to the emotion he saw on the Galra’s face when he’d stared him down, so certain in that moment that he was about to come face to face with his own mortality. The only thing he can think to describe it, however, is that the alien was watching him, bizarrely enough, with _familiarity_. Not only that, but there was almost some sort of underlying fondness as he smiled, like he’d _known_ him in some way.

 

Keith shakes his head of that crazy thought, because that’s impossible, and there has to be a reasonable explanation for why they retreated after getting seemingly nothing from the fight. When it comes down to it, the Galra are all spineless creatures, he muses. Of course they’d retreat when they realized they’d been beat this time around.

 

They really all are fucking pussies.

 

He watches the breeze play around with Lance’s hair for a while as they stand somewhat frozen, taking it all in. Keith finds himself smiling despite everything as he remembers the way Lance told him he loved him, the kindness in his eyes and the sincerity in his voice. The way he became embarrassed so easily had been nothing short of endearing, and Keith knew that despite his futile attempt at taking it all back, that that just confirmed it all the more.

 

Lance loved him. Lance _loves_ him. Keith’s heart swells with feeling, even here in the desolate landscape amidst the ruin of their home.

 

Anyone who knows what love is, will understand, and no one finally understands it more in that moment than Keith.

 

Because love is the feel of soft lips kissing him and careful, tender hands over his skin. Because love is the mischievous grin aimed at him whenever they're in the midst of battle, no matter how bleak things might look. Love is dumb puns and recorded songs in a surprisingly soothing, baritone, love is being defended when others put him down.

 

Love is sticking together even through the thick of rivalry and convoluted emotions. Love is the fierceness of blue eyes that simultaneously look at him with kindness and in awe, like he's something worth staring at.

 

Love is the tide of the ocean, keeping them all afloat.

 

Because, love is _Lance_.

 

Keith wants to laugh for no real reason, to jump around like an idiot and shout his love to anyone who will listen, to get his hands back on Lance and kiss him until his lips bruise. He’s completely giddy, and it’s sickening in some ways, frowning when he thinks that he’s probably acting similarly to a lovesick teen who just got confessed to by their long-standing crush.

 

He blinks at that, shuffling uncomfortably. Well, he  _is_ technically still a teen, so maybe that metaphor is sadly not as far off as he’d hoped.

 

Coran breaks the silence with a rough clear of his throat, finally, and luckily Keith doesn’t have to reflect on that thought more. In an attempt to lighten the mood, his voice projects cheerily to them, although it sounds tighter, more constricted in his throat than usual.

 

“Well! Looks like we’ll be busy for a while now, huh? I suppose we should start on repairs here, since this is the main hub of the ship! Let’s get to it, Paladins, we have quite the rest of the day ahead of us.”

 

No one even protests with being too tired. They all seem to share the same understanding that the sooner they start repairs, the sooner they can get off this depressing shithole of a planet.

 

The threat of the Galra is gone for now, but there’s the ever-present problem of this - a place which has become like home to them all over time, in various states of ruin. Even though Keith has never quite been able to settle down anywhere long enough to call something his ‘home’, excepting maybe his shack in the desert, he’s grown much more of an attachment to this place than he cares to admit, and it’s unsettling to see it this way.

 

He’s aware of Pidge sighing beside him as she fiddles with the tottering pile of twisted metal and wires of some control panel, aware of Hunk sifting through the rubble of the main hall, looking for instruments he can utilize to start putting things back together.

 

Lance isn’t helping so much as he’s aimlessly kicking debris around on the mound of what’s left of the massive Christmas tree, which seems like such a distant warm memory already. Scattered bits of pink hearts and glitter cover the floor along with dust and dirt, decorations Pidge never bothered to remove and only kept adding to, like some bizarre altar to a mismatched mash up of holidays. Rover is hovering about helping move rubble, a tilted green hat still resting atop its pointed ‘head’. Keith doesn’t have the energy to be angry about it all, only tutting when he sees it.

 

It’s a wasteland unlike any other, a mix of crumbling alien technology and strange broken remnants of holiday paraphernalia. If this were an actual horror movie, the protagonists of the story would be more than a little disturbed by the extremely out of place decorative landscape.

 

Keith busies his hands with the idle work, though it’s increasingly harder and harder to concentrate on the task at hand. The feeling of eyes roving hot over his skin is distracting and prickles up the hairs on the nape of his neck, but every time he looks back at who he assumes would be the only culprit who’d be watching him so intensely, Lance is whipping his head around with an incredibly fake whistle, poorly acting like he isn’t ogling him through all this.

 

Allura has all but vanished, having slipped away somewhere else in the castle so uncharacteristically quietly that it had taken Keith about a half hour to realize she wasn’t in the mess of the room with them anymore. After making sure he was physically okay again with a gentle hand on his shoulder and a lopsided smile, Shiro disappears not long after, Coran trailing after him.

 

Not surprisingly after the stunt he pulled earlier, they declare Hunk in charge of overseeing things.

 

Keith’s just turned around for about the tenth time in the whole ‘Lance continuing to frustratingly look at him but pretending not to’ charade, when Hunk’s voice yanks him from his thoughts.

 

“Oi, Keith, did you hear me?”

 

“Oh, uh, sorry,” Keith turns back around. Lance whistles louder. “No, what were you saying?”

 

“I said, your shirt’s on backwards. I forgot to tell you earlier because, you know, our lives were in jeopardy and all that stuff. But yeah. It’s inside-out, too. I just wanted to let you know since it looks like it might be uncomfortable.”

 

Pidge snickers loudly as Keith feels heat collect in his cheeks. He looks down at himself, noting that now that he thinks about it, his shirt had been feeling pretty strange.

 

Well, he muses. At least he didn't accidentally end up putting on Lance’s clothes instead.

 

“Uh, right. Thanks. It kinda is.”

 

Without really thinking, he takes it off then and there to fix it, despite three pairs of eyes now distinctly watching him. When he rearranges his shirt, pulls it back over his head, everyone’s just sort of staring at him like he did something incredibly weird.

 

“What?” he asks them gruffly, more than a little confused and self conscious from the sudden attention.

 

Hunk is looking away as if he’s seen something particularly disturbing, Pidge is laughing, and Lance makes a choking sort of whimper from somewhere behind him.

 

“Wow, oh my God,” Pidge manages between her laughter, “that is one huge hick--”

 

Hunk clamps his hand over her mouth before she can say another word. “Huge _bruise_!” he shouts, which Keith thinks is a bit unnecessary. “You have a really bad bruise thingy or something on your side, man. Are you sure you’re okay?”

 

“Ah...I do?”

 

Keith pulls his shirt back up to inspect the area, which indeed is bearing a ghastly mark that sure _looks_ like a bruise. He notes, as he prods it gingerly, it's exactly where the Galra soldier tased him the other day, and it's looking a lot worse than it feels. The skin there has belatedly taken on a purplish color so dark it almost appears black as it stretches in a bizarre zig-zagging pattern across his side and covering most of his abdomen, branching out like the fine veins of a leaf.

 

“Oh, that. Yeah, it’s nothing, I’m fine,” he reassures them, despite internally feeling slightly uneasy about it, “A Galra soldier tased me a bunch when they were holding us captive, but I heal pretty fast and it didn’t really hurt at the time even. I’m alright.”

 

“Really? It looks terrible. Maybe you should spend like, a half-hour in the healing pod or something?” Hunk sets down the tool in his hand, scratches his head. “Uh, granted they’re still in one piece, that is.”

 

Lance has apparently gone completely mute, still somewhere out of his line of sight, but Keith hears him draw in a sharp breath all the same.

 

“Nah,” Keith brushes them off, not understanding what all the fuss is about. It looks bad, yeah, but...he presses his index finger on one curved branch right above his hipbone a little more harshly, just to make sure. It’s sensitive, but not exactly with pain. He’s just ultra aware of the feel of it, as if someone took an ice cube and shoved it down his shirt without warning.

 

He paints on a smile, trying not to think about how it’s alarming to some degree. “No, it doesn’t hurt. It’s okay, everything’s fine, I’m totally fine.”

 

Hunk gives him one last concerned look before deciding to drop it. He removes his hand from over Pidge’s mouth, because she isn’t laughing at all anymore, just has this excited sort of glint in her eye. She draws closer to inspect the ruptured capillaries as Keith runs his finger along the raised, twisting pattern, mouth now set into a grim, fine line. The shape is familiar in some way, reminding him of a documentary he once saw about people who’d survived being struck by lightning. They, too, were left with strange, branch-like scars across their skin where they’d been hit.

 

“Interesting,” is all Pidge says after a moment, adjusting her glasses and eyeing him with something faintly like suspicion. “They’re _Lichtenberg figures,_ or you know _, lightning flowers._ Though it’s strange, I’ve never seen them that sort of color before, they’re usually red or white _…”_ She shakes her head, tone pensive, and clears her throat. “In any case, that must have been an impressively high voltage they used, electrical treeing doesn’t just happen from any old simple tasing.”

 

She chuckles again, though it sounds much more strained, and she’s looking at a point behind him rather than at him as she continues speaking.

 

”There's no point in being in a healing pod, it wouldn’t make much of a difference. It may or may not permanently scar, though they usually fade after a few days. But the aftermath _isn't_  the life threatening part.” Her gaze flicks back to him, and for the first time that he can ever recall, Pidge is looking at him with obvious, unmasked worry. “You were...very lucky, Keith. You really are always toeing the fine line between life and death, huh?”

 

Keith shrugs, as he’s never really thought of it like that. He just does things, results happen, and sometimes, those results occasionally end up with his life being put in danger. He’s never considered it in that light, but he supposes that recently, although he has acted about as rashly as he usually does, that he has had some pretty close calls.

 

He wonders, if maybe, that’s the sort of thing that could be upsetting to the others. He wonders, if maybe, it’s especially hard on a certain someone to hear about how close of a call he possibly had mere inches away from his unconscious body at that time. He drops the hem of his shirt and turns around to look at Lance, gulping down the lump in his throat.

 

He’s sitting on a pile of metal debris, limbs splayed out wide, looking a little lost. Keith catches the split second of a deeply ingrained frown before he’s plastering on a grin.

 

“Say,” Lance says slowly, rising and stretching out his arms above his head. “The castle will still be, y’know,” he blows a crude raspberry with his mouth, “all scrim-scrambled and stuff later, right?”

 

Hunk pushes his sweaty bangs out of his face with the crook of his elbow, wrench clasped tightly back in his hand with his brows furrowing. “Uhh, yeah? Most likely, dude.”

 

“ _Great_ ,” Lance stretches out the syllables in the word, and Keith cocks an eyebrow as he starts creeping towards him. “Great, perfecto, wonderful, magnificent. Cause I’m just gonna….just gonna pop out for a bit, if that’s okay.”

 

Pidge narrows her eyes, begins to tell him that _no, it fucking isn’t okay because they have so much shit to do_ , but Lance only ignores her, responding with a hurried, “Thanks, you guys are  _such_ lifesavers, covering for me! Oh, and Keith, too.”

 

Keith jumps a little when Lance makes it to his side and hooks their arms together, then pats him placatingly on the head as if he were a small child or dog. Annoyance rises in him, and he tries to shake Lance off and protest being dragged into any shenanigans, but Lance leans in close, so close that his lips brush his ear.

 

He whispers lowly into it so that that others can’t hear him, and Keith suppresses visibly shuddering with the hot puff of air that stutters out against the shell.

 

“Just play along, I’m working my magic here, okay? I want to talk to you, _alone_.”

 

Keith opens his mouth to snap out a dry remark that nothing about what Lance is saying is ‘working magic’ in any way so much as he’s just _declaring things he’s about to do_ , but his jaw clamps right back shut. He decides to remain silent, if only out of curiosity, if only to let his guilt for being so reckless recede. He allows Lance to start ushering him down the hall, towards the wing leading to whatever remains of their bedrooms.

 

“Yeah, I’m just gonna snag Mr. Moody Mullet here, and we’ll be on our way, so yes, thank you, your efforts are much appreciated.”

 

Lance stops dragging him only to stride over to vigorously shake both Pidge and Hunk’s hands awkwardly, as if he’s just contracted with some rival company over a mutually beneficial business deal. He salutes them before zipping right back to Keith’s side, hand clamping down like a vice on his arm. Hunk continues to look on at his own hand, and then back at Lance with confusion, but some sort of realization seems to hit Pidge, who wrinkles her nose in distaste.

 

“ _Oh_. Ew. Okay, I got it, no need to disturb us with the details. Whatever, then. Have fun,” Pidge mumbles and sighs, giving up so easily Keith only becomes more confused. She turns around and waves them off as Hunk grills her to explain. “But remember, you owe us for this later! Especially Hunk, since he’s in charge. And facing Allura or Shiro’s reprimands is worth more than just you doing a few of our chores, so keep that in mind!”

 

Lance brushes them off with nonplussed ‘ _yeahs_ ’ and ‘ _whatevers_ ’, yanking Keith away so quickly he almost tumbles forwards at the force.

 

“Lance, what’s going on? Where are you taking me?” he tries to coax an answer out of him, struggling to keep up with the momentum at which Lance is pulling him along. But Lance doesn’t answer him, doesn’t look back at all.

 

He just keeps insistently tugging, striding forward with determination, winding down the hall towards what Keith recognizes as his bedroom. Sweat beads on his brow at that, since he hasn’t been down there since that night he walked in on him.

 

They reach the door, and surprisingly enough, everything appears to be in one piece as it slides open, revealing the unexpectedly organized room. It's the first time Keith's really getting a good look at it, now that there's no lewd Lance doing unspeakably distracting things on the bed.

 

It’s unnervingly pristine, probably the exact opposite of his own room. There isn’t a single stray article of clothing out, everything’s tucked away or folded neatly in simple piles, the bed is made. The lights are dim, stars flashing brightly through the window and casting a soft glow upon the seemingly untouched bed.

 

It doesn’t look like anyone even lives there, let alone sleeps in it every night.

 

Keith taps his foot as he stands in the middle of the room, feeling more than out of place and nervous as the memories rush back to him from that night. He’s so close to the bed, to the place where he first discovered Lance’s true feelings about him--

 

“Sit,” Lance commands with a nod of his head towards the bed, and that awful frown is tugging back on his face. Keith doesn’t like that look at all, so he obeys even though touching the mattress feels unbelievably dirty, like being caught with his pants down in some forbidden place.

 

Lance slowly unclasps and unbuckles his outer armor with stiff, but purposeful motions, biding his time. If this is supposed to be a strip tease, it’s the worst one Keith has ever experienced - and he doesn’t even need to have experienced any other strip teases to know that. Once he has it all off, Lance moves only to lay it all neatly down on the other piles out of the way.

 

Then he just stands there in front of him, looking down, like he's waiting for _Keith_ to be the one to do something. He doesn’t say anything else, just watches him with those piercing eyes, lower lip caught between his teeth like he doesn’t remember where he was going with this at all.

 

“Lance,” Keith prompts softly after what feels like several minutes tick by, cocking his head, “Are you alright? Did you...what did you want to talk about?”

 

“You weren't okay when I asked if you were back in the cell,” Lance accuses shortly, hands clenched tight at his sides, “You were hurt, you could have died.”

 

With the way Lance says it like he's just trying to process it all, Keith doesn't think he's exactly searching for a response. Stupidly, his mouth moves anyway.

 

“Maybe, but I mean, I, uh...it's fine, because I...I didn't?”

 

He winces at his complete lack of ability to go about this delicately at all when Lance is obviously more upset than he's been letting on. Anything else more coherent to try and make Lance feel better dissipates on the tip of his tongue.

 

“But you _could_ have,” Lance insists even more quietly, so frailly it’s like he’s not speaking at all, moving forward until their knees knock together. He reaches out to trail a finger along Keith’s cheek. “You could have….more than once.”

 

By the hurt and fear that's more than clear on Lance's face, Keith's expecting him to maybe let him have it, to really chew him out for being so reckless for no other reason except that he childishly wanted to antagonize the Galra soldier. For all accounts and purposes, he feels like Lance _should_ yell at him or something, _should_ point out that had he died, Lance might have even still be being held captive, or something worse, like being tortured or killed as well.

 

How the entire team would have been screwed and not been able to form Voltron.

 

He feels terrible, especially at the thought that Lance’s well-being could have been put in jeopardy because of his own stupidity. He’s expecting - almost _wants_ \- Lance to set him straight, to tell him just really how badly he's fucked up by putting himself in danger without a second thought to how it could have affected everyone else.

 

What he isn’t expecting by a long shot is the way Lance doesn't say another word, but only pushes a firm hand on his chest until Keith lets himself flop backwards onto the mattress. He isn’t expecting him to quickly crawl on the bed and straddle his waist, isn’t expecting the frantic mash of lips against his that connect more harshly than he thinks they ever have before.

 

No, he can’t say he was expecting any of that, but he eagerly goes with it, meeting Lance in a clash of tongue and teeth, a low moan slipping with every press of Lance’s searching fingers that can’t seem to settle with where exactly they want to land. They map out every inch of him they can manage instead, and each brush of skin-on-skin feels like wildfire igniting in his veins.

 

It’s needy, desperate, and they don’t have any sort of calculated rhythm so much as they’re making pathetic, clumsy attempts of just getting closer, _closer_ somehow. Fingers are tangling in his hair, roving over his chest. A knee pushes fast and hard between his thighs, pressing just _so_ in a way that has him scrambling to clutch the sheets. His breathing easily becomes ragged when Lance nips sharper love bites down his neck, when he ventures back up to kiss him so breathless his head spins. Still, Lance’s touches are nothing but thoughtfully tender, especially when he slides a cool palm under Keith’s shirt, fingering the mess of gnarled branches that stem out over his skin.

 

Lance pauses for a breath then, slinking back to his knees to yank the shirt of his suit over his head, and Keith can only see and feel himself being swallowed up by the deep, vast waves of the ocean of Lance McClain.

 

It’s nothing short of nauseatingly poetic, even though Lance’s head ungracefully gets caught in his rush to take the skintight spandex off, and Keith spends a good amount of time chuckling in between his pleased sighs with every slow roll of Lance’s hips continuing to grind down on him.

 

“I lied,” Lance announces with a wry smile once he wrestles it successfully off and flings it across the room, shoving up Keith’s shirt fully and splaying out his hand over the ugly marks, pupils blown wide and _beautiful_ \- those irises such lovely, beautiful blue. “I didn’t really take you here to talk.”

 

Keith thinks that maybe, if it were more appropriate, he’d snort and say something more typically sarcastic like ‘ _obviously_ ’. But the atmosphere is painfully emotional, and despite the erection tenting in his pants that yearns for more friction, Keith patiently watches with baited breath. He wills himself not to buck shamelessly upwards, chest heaving heavily as Lance strokes up the lines, traces them lightly before he replaces calloused fingers with the wet heat of his mouth.

 

“Oh,” Keith gasps as Lance flattens his tongue along the over sensitized ridges, “Oh _, God_.”

 

He presses different fluttering kisses over the patterns, some lingering longer than others, some more sloppy and carrying the swipe of his tongue. Some are drier and barely make contact, so light it borders on tickling, some he sucks and worries the extremely tender flesh with the barest hint of teeth. It makes Keith’s back arch sharply, loud whimpers escaping him no matter what the type of kiss - though in all instances, each remain soft, gentle in this way that’s still hard for him to comprehend.

 

By the end of it all, Keith is glad there are no mirrors anywhere nearby, as he’s sure he probably looks like a complete mess, practically putty underneath Lance’s every move.

 

“I’m not, ah…” Lance’s eyes flicker towards Keith’s crotch, then back up to him through the thick of his lashes as he hooks his fingers into the waistband of his pants. “Obviously, not so good at the whole talking biz, and to be honest, I don't really want to talk about it, because it...it's really scary. I don't want to think about what could have….could have happened.” The fingers snagged in the elastic band shake a little, as does Lance’s voice.  “What's important, is that you're here…”

 

Another kiss to his stomach, so little pressure it makes Keith yearn with desire for more.

 

“...and you're…you're _alive_.”

 

Lance breaks eye contact, tugging Keith's pants urgently down. His palms slide along with them as he peels off the material, brushing over the quaking muscles of his thighs to his calves infuriatingly slow.

 

He pauses when he's about to come back up to do the same to Keith's shirt, licking his lips as he stares back with cheeks so perfectly flushed against golden bronzed skin, hand hovering mere inches from the leaking tip of his cock that twitches upward with the need for Lance to do something, _anything_.

 

“So I...so I brought you here to _show you_ how much you mean to me instead. Is that alright?”

 

Keith smiles, spreads his legs a little wider and gives a subtle cant of his hips, an action that doesn't go unnoticed by Lance.

 

“Of course. But are you really gonna start romancing me up by _sucking my dick_..?” he teases, willing the nervous twang to go down in his voice. He hopes Lance is too busy with his own nervousness to notice.

 

Lance waves a hand with a so-so motion in the air, looming over him with a waggle of eyebrows until he slips away suddenly, bounding over to his desk. Keith grunts in frustration, deciding to take on the task of removing the rest of his clothing himself if Lance is going to dick around about this. He’s wrangled his shirt just over his head when Lance practically attacks him, landing in a flying pounce back on the bed so hard he flops upwards.

 

“Hmmm,” Lance hums, brandishing a curious looking bottle in the palm of his hand while running his other over Keith's bared thighs, gleaming with the proudest expression Keith thinks he's ever seen on him. He smiles, all teeth.

 

“Or something like that!”

  
  


* * *

 

 

 

Shiro finds Allura, at the suggestion of Coran, in a room that he’s only been to on one occasion before to clean - and at that time, it surely didn’t look like _this_.

 

When the door slides open, he’s instantly transported to the most beautiful landscape he’s seen in a long time. Lush greenery and large, pink flowers in full bloom fill the room, which disorientingly no longer looks much like a room at all with its endless, mesmerizing fields stretching out in all directions.

 

He rubs his tired eyes, blinks a few times, but the image stays. It’s so real looking, so convincing, that it takes him a moment to remember he’s still in the castle, to remind himself that this must be what the hollo-room looks like when it’s in actual use. He trods forwards, searching for a peek of white among the rainbow of new colors. He watches the wind carry away petals in large, swirling heaps, dancing in a clear-blue sky above him with puffy, idly floating about clouds.

 

The atmosphere is lazy, like when time has slowed down in the thick of the heat of summer. If this were real, he imagines there would be warmth or humidity even, that there would be sweet smells and the hint of fresh, clean air.

 

As it is, however, the only senses being stimulated are his sight and sound, occasionally the touch of a rather convincing wind. The place is unsettling absent of any smells different from the ones on the ship, the bright sun above him burns bright, but casts no rays that can be felt. It somehow leaves him more on edge the longer he spends treading down dirt paths that somehow crunch under his feet, but can’t be bothered to smell even remotely like anything natural and earthen.

 

It’s then that he comes upon a giant, blossoming tree of the most shockingly purple flowers, which he stares at only briefly with awe before his eyes settle on the shadow of it casting over a ruddy shore. There Allura is, sitting amidst a ring of tall reeds by a small pond, curled in a tight ball with her shoulders hunched, with that familiar strong air about her that still stands out more than any of the scenery.

 

The mice are with her, two playing some sort of hide-and-seek game in between the blades of grass near her feet, another is resting on her shoulder, looking as pensively as a mouse can over at the pond. The last and smallest one is imitating her, bunched by her side and sneaking intermittent glances towards her in concern.

 

She looks peaceful from the angle he’s at, like something out of a Monet painting, but as he draws nearer he can see the deep crease of furrowed brows, of downturned lips set so distinctly on her face it’s hard to even imagine what her smile would look like in that moment.

 

He stops walking, unsure if he should really interrupt her when it’s clear she came here to be alone, when without turning, she calls out to him.

 

“Come watch the sunset with me, Shiro,” her voice brushes by like the weak draft of wind just then, “It’s happening soon, and it’s going to be magnificent.”

 

“Sure,” Shiro says gently, venturing forward, and he plops down in the spot clear of mice next to her as she pats the sandy ground. She still isn’t looking at him.

 

He clears his throat. “Coran said that I might...might find you here, so I thought I’d see if you were okay.”

 

Her hand drops from her knees to pet the small mouse poised near her. “Oh,” she says quietly, “How...how is he doing?”

 

Shiro thinks back to when they’d left the main room, away from the other paladins. Remembers the way Coran’s false grin had fell, how his expression had turned graver than anything he’d ever seen on him before. How he’d told him where to look for Allura, somehow knowing that his presence to her would be important.

 

How he’d taken off quickly without another word after that, how it wasn’t in the direction to go back to the others, but much farther away to the lower decks.

 

“He’s holding up alright,” he lies, “How are _you_ doing, Princess?”

 

She doesn’t answer him, at first. The mice tackling each other pause to stare up at her, as if she’s said something to them telepathically that’s caught their attention.

 

“You know, when I was little, my father used to...used to take me around the castle whenever he had repairs to do,” she begins as the rest of the mice settle down and circle her, as if they’re prepared for a nice story before bed. “Of course, I was too little to actually help or do anything of substance, but he’d give me a tool and hold me up to the broken parts of panels and things. Behind my back, he’d twist levers or press a button, crank something where I couldn’t see to make it seem like I was the one doing all the work.”

 

She laughs a little, and it’s so lovely, but so empty. Over the water, the sun is beginning to drop lower in the sky.

 

“He’d pretend to be astounded, would wrap me in a big hug and tell me how incredibly skilled I was and how proud he was of me. He’d say that I was a born leader, that I’d make a great princess, or even queen, someday. At the time, I thought I was unstoppable, that I was so strong.”

 

Shiro looks out over the pond, watching the ripple of water silently as he lets her clear out her thoughts.

 

“But I was a fool to continue taking that to heart, especially as the years went on, when I grew older and realized the ruse he’d been pulling.” She lifts her face to him for the first time, and Shiro frowns, pain shooting sharp in his heart when he sees the puffiness of her eyes. “I’m not strong at all. I’ve failed as a leader.”

 

“Allura,” he manages to find his voice, if barely, “You know that’s not true, I--”

 

She hushes him with a palm to the air, signaling for him to let her finish, so he relents. She looks out over the water as she continues speaking, tucking her chin to her knees.

 

“We couldn’t save them, Shiro. We didn’t even know the people of Rengaron were gone until we got there, it could have been…” She trails off, voice quaking until she gains control of it again. “It could have been months, years, decades. We didn’t even know. They were snuffed away quietly, like they were nothing, leaving behind no signs of who they even were.”

 

Her eyes flicker up to the simulated sunset, which is bleeding soft pinks and oranges over the horizon. Instead of frowning, her mouth begins to turn up in a small, fond smile.

 

“Just...just like _my_ people. Just like Altea.”

 

Oh.

 

Shiro hadn’t had much time to settle his thoughts enough to really get a grip on what everyone else must have been going through after the battle, always feeling more than a little out of his body after such stress, like he was watching himself from a distance going through the motions of some semblance of normalcy.

 

There are no words that can be said, that can make the pain of having your entire planet full of people you love obliterated -  and then being forced to face it again - somehow okay, so he settles on cupping a hand over hers, interlacing their fingers and rubbing his thumb over her soft palm. They watch the sunset together that way, until the sun hangs low enough that the water reflects every fleck of it, like the light of it is swallowing it whole.

 

“You did what you could, Allura,” Shiro says after a few minutes, deciding resolutely that there _are_ words that can _help_.

 

It’s not about fixing things, exactly, he thinks. It’s not about putting band-aids over obvious bullet holes. It’s about being supportive and doing everything one can to make hard things easier to deal with.

 

To let those people know that they’re not alone.

 

“You...you answered the distress call, you were clearly worried about the people there. You stepped up and led us with grace and dignity during the fight. There was no way of knowing that we were going to be deceived. Nobody could have predicted that. You did everything you could, you did it right and without hesitance, and that’s all that matters.”

 

He squeezes her hand as she stares at him wide eyed, clearly taken aback. “And you _are_ a good leader, even if you don’t feel like one right now.”

 

“Thanks, Shiro,” she says quietly after a pause, squeezing back, “I...thank you for that.”

 

She relaxes in her posture slightly, straightening out her back. A mouse hops over to Shiro, scrambling up his back and into his hair, which it apparently decides to make into a nest to sleep. Startled by the sudden movement, he lets go of her hand and makes a decidedly unmanly noise, but it makes Allura giggle. He smiles, and they fall into a peaceful silence again.

 

Above them, the sun has almost completely gone down, glazed with colors around it that shift and meld against the waning blue. Shiro thinks about how it’s been a long, long time since he saw a sunset as breathtaking as this, musing that even the one back on Komium wasn’t nearly as impressive.

 

“So this is Altea, huh?” he guesses, somewhat breathless, heart tugging in about a million different directions.

 

Allura nods, stretching out her legs and digging her bare feet into the sand. Her hands come behind her as she leans back to better stare at the sky.

 

“It’s beautiful,” Shiro breathes, watching the expanse of the sky fade to a deep purple, much faster than he thinks normal sunsets should happen - though he’s unsure if it’s because this is how Allura programmed it, or how sunsets on Altea actually were.

 

She sighs, long and loud, eyeing him from the corner of her eye, gentle smile still locked in place. “It was, wasn’t it?”

 

 

* * *

 

  


“Do I even want to know where the hell you got that?” Keith speaks the first words that come to mind after a tense moment of silence at the suggestion of this all, at the realization of what Lance is offering to do to him, or - god, _god_ , he’s so not prepared for this - what he might want Keith to do to _him_.

 

Lance’s smirk falls, the bottle slides out of his hand. He scrambles to catch it, giving a sheepish shrug of his shoulders.

 

“Y-you know,” he says in a squeaky high pitch, nudging Keith to motion for him to move farther back onto the bed, towards the pillows. “It’s...it’s probably best we don’t talk about the details.”

 

Keith wants to open his mouth to protest, despite the insistent throbbing between his legs, which is almost matching the throbbing behind his temples now. He’s not sure he can so easily let go of the fact that somehow, _somewhere_ in the empty vastness of fucking _space_ , Lance managed to find _lube_.

 

He sighs, dragging himself backwards. He shouldn’t be surprised, really, considering this is Lance. He ultimately decides to let it go, however, when a hand grabs his length and gives it a few, firm pumps.

 

The strokes are tentative, with not enough friction to be anything other than mounting his frustration, though admittedly in a good way. Keith’s eyes slip closed, simply enjoying the slide of Lance’s palm, until Lance stops and circles a finger slowly around the ridge of his cock, thumbing over the tip. Keith bucks desperately into the movement, but Lance laughs, and Keith’s eyes flutter open in question.

 

“W-what?” Keith says through a gasp with a frown, more self-conscious now that he can see how intensely Lance is staring at him.

 

Lance’s grin widens as he completely stops what he’s doing so he can brush his hand up higher, fingering over the dip of Keith’s collarbone.

 

“Nothing, it’s just...well, I mean, for one, you’re really cute,” Lance leans over and gives him a chaste kiss, and Keith feels his face grow hotter, which he didn’t think was even possible at this point, “And also, Pidge was right. That is a _massive_ hickey.”

 

“A-A  _h-hickey_?” Keith splutters, looking down to see that, to his horror, there is another dark purplish blotch with the faintest imprints of Lance’s sharp teeth in it - and there’s no mistaking _that_ particular mark for a battle wound in any way, shape, or form. His thoughts rewind to taking his shirt off earlier, with everyone’s strange reactions and Hunk clapping his hand over Pidge’s mouth, and everything makes a whole lot more sense.

 

“Oh my fucking God,” Keith groans, throwing an arm across his abashed face, “And I took my...fuck, I took it off in front of...and everyone….everyone…”

 

“Yup,” Lance practically sings, the bastard. “Everyone saw it!”

 

“I hate you,” Keith grinds out, and in retaliation, jerks his knee up into Lance’s crotch, relishing in the way Lance doubles over, how he pants and lets out the cutest, shuddering sort of moan.

 

“What-whatever,” Lance grits through his teeth, tweaking at one of Keith’s nipples until he relents, “It looks hot, and I know you liked it, so…”

 

“ _No_ , I totally _didn’t_ , I - _ah, ah, shit, shit_ \--”

 

Lance grins, sucking back with a loud smack after latching his teeth directly next to the other mark. “You were saying?”

 

He doesn’t remember at all what he was saying, letting his fingers curl into Lance’s hair and pull when Lance sprinkles more bites over his chest that are most likely going to leave marks the same way - and the thought of that is only making him harder than ever. All Keith does remember is that Lance is infuriatingly sexy, and so extremely observant of everything he does that Keith is beginning to grow suspicious he might have some library of research compiled only on him somewhere among that neatly organized room.

 

It doesn’t feel entirely right, though, to keep letting Lance do all this to him without giving something back. Keith lifts his knee up slowly again, rubbing in small, short pulses that has curses tumbling from Lance’s mouth. He’s just beginning to consider flipping their positions to see what more interesting noises he can manage to draw out of him, when Lance shoves a hand between his knee, forcing him to stop, and pulls away.

 

“As much as that feels fucking amazing,” Lance audibly swallows, looking like he’s about to say the hardest thing he’s ever had to in his life, “I’m gonna have to say no, because this is for _you_ , not me.”

 

“But,” Keith pushes his lip into a pout, ‘ _I love touching you_ ’ on the tip of his tongue. “But that’s...not as fun,” he says lamely instead.

 

“Listen,” Lance grabs both of Keith’s thighs, kneading them as he speaks, face twisted into something akin to pain, “I know how much you’re gonna sit here and put on this tough mullet act or whatever - “ Keith glares even though the work of his hands feels heavenly, because as usual, the mention of his mullet seems entirely unnecessary. “But your body’s just been through a lot, and even though you say nothing hurts, I still think it’s best for you to take it easy. You’ve already more than overexerted yourself, so just sit back, enjoy it, and let me do all the work, yeah?”

 

Keith huffs a little, but it does sound appealing to relax and let Lance do everything, especially at the increasing lack of energy he seems to have.

 

He nods, but then wonders, if Lance doesn’t want him to do anything strenuous, what the whole space lube thing is about. “So what...what did you have in mind, then, exactly..?”

 

Lance pauses, searching the sheets for the bottle he'd dropped during their fooling around. He finds it after a moment, tapping a finger to his chin and looking anywhere but at Keith again. “I, uh, well…” He clears his throat as he unscrews it, pouring out a good amount of liquid into his palm.

 

Honestly, probably a little _too_ much.

 

“I read from, uh, _somewhere_ that was totally not in this book that's in my room right now - ” Keith tilts his head at that oddly specific statement, deciding to tuck away whatever that’s about to address at a later time. “ - that if I, _you know_ , use my fingers to,” he makes a jabbing motion with his slicked fingers into the air, so endearingly embarrassed about the whole situation that Keith can’t even find the heart to tease him about it. “It might...well, it’s  _supposed to_ feel really good? So I sort of - was curious and wanted to try it...if that’s okay...”

 

Keith chuckles, pushing himself up so he can plant a sloppy kiss on Lance’s lips. For a few moments, they get caught up in it, but when it turns more heated Keith pulls away, forgetting he never really responded. He gestures to the bottle. “Yeah, it does feel good. If that's what you wanna do, I'm totally up for it.”

 

“Oh, so you’ve…” Lance’s face falls. “You’ve already tried it..?”

 

“Mmm,” Keith hums in response, then adds quickly when he notices how that only seems to make Lance more crestfallen, “By myself, that is.”

 

“Ah, ha-ha, r-right,” Lance sucks in a harsh breath, smoothing his dry hand over the back of his neck before absently adding more lube to his already way over-lubed hand, “That’s, um, shit. That’s hot.”

 

Lance’s nervous laughter combined with the deeper flush that blossoms over his cheeks makes it hard for Keith to stay on task and not to continue just making out with him. He takes in a deep breath himself when Lance smears some of the lube over his cock, pumping a few times as he reaches for a pillow.

 

The shock of the coolness pulls a sharp gasp from his lips, but Lance relents his grip so he can work on slipping the pillow underneath him, coaxing his hips up until Keith is able to breathe through his nose again.

 

“Hey, I’ve got to ask though. Why...why’d you take your shirt off if, you know, you weren’t going to..?” Keith tries to ease into it all with idle chat like this isn't a big deal, anticipation rising as he settles back on the pillow, spreading his legs as wide as he can manage. His muscles are starting to feel a lot sorer than they were before, though it’s been a nice sting in combination with Lance’s touches.

 

“Because you make me sweat, baby,” Lance grins, shooting him a finger gun. Keith rolls his eyes, which turns more into rolling towards the back of his head when Lance begins to push one slippery finger into him, so slowly that Keith can feel every little wriggle, every pulse as it fights past the tight muscle.

 

Lance doesn’t move once it’s all the way in, and when Keith cracks open an eye, trying to steady his breathing, he’s paler than usual, looking like he’s about to lose his lunch.

 

“No, but for real, I am _super_ sweaty right now,” Lance babbles, letting his other hand creep over Keith’s thigh to give a small squeeze - experimental, with more pressure than before. “Like _really_ sweaty, I mean, you can probably feel it on my hands, but I, whoo boy -” He pauses to fan himself, “Is it just me, or is it like, abnormally fucking hot in here? You know, I bet the cooling systems are going haywire to--”

 

“Lance,” Keith groans, rocking forward with his hips to try and get the message across for Lance to move, or pull away, or whatever the fuck he’s planning to do. “You know you, ah...you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to - _fuck_.”

 

Keith’s head snaps back harshly, he clutches at the sheets and swears. Lance has apparently decided to replace talk with action.

 

“Oh,” Lance laughs, gauging his reaction with sharp, calculating eyes when Keith lifts his head to see what prompted this change, but he only loses control of it as Lance thrusts his finger in again fast, then out slow.  “Oh, trust me. I want to.”

 

It’s a wildly spinning blur after that, like the most intoxicating fever dream Keith's ever had. There’s a lot of writhing and arching into the sheets, of his hips jerking to push more of Lance into him, of Lance adding two more fingers eventually, continuing to take his time. He isn’t very good at multitasking, often pausing to stroke his cock, never staying long enough at either to really build a steady incline for Keith to be able to find any hint of release.

 

It feels good, though, there’s no doubting that, and it’s definitely better having someone else doing it to him. No, it’s _infinitely_ better having the warmth of Lance’s smile and the kindness of his voice asking him if he’s still okay, of the way his eyes drag over him and watch his every move like it’s the best thing he’s ever seen. And Keith imagines what it would be like to _really_ feel Lance - to feel the thick of his cock replacing his fingers, wonders how Lance would go about fucking him then.

 

If he would be slow and gentle like usual, if he’d hesitate somewhat like he still is now, somehow afraid to hurt him.

 

If maybe he’d get faster or more forceful with encouragement.

 

Because in the midst of that fantasy, Lance always seems to miss his real mark, only grazing at his prostate in this way that is absolutely driving Keith up the wall, and there’s only so much more of this he can take.

 

“Here,” Keith finds his voice again after several minutes of this patient, absolute torture, reaching down to grasp Lance’s wrist and guide his hand. “You’ve got to...got to angle them up a little more, a little farther forward. Harder, too. And like, curl your fingers a bit...”

 

Lance is biting his lip uncertainly. Keith pushes again, harder, rocking into it and letting the aftershock of pleasure crash through him when the pad of Lance’s fingers brush more fully onto his prostate. “S-see? I promise, you won’t hurt me. And even if you did somehow, I would tell you.”

 

“Pssh, I-I know that, obviously,” Lance mumbles, though relief spreads over his features. “So, uh, like this..?”

 

Lance locks eyes with him, pressing further up at his insistence, finally harder than before. It causes a pressure that tingles up Keith’s spine, though it’s still not at quite the right angle.

 

“A-almost…”

 

Keith snaps his hips forward, abs tightening as he fights to focus in order to help him out. Lance grimaces, sweat visibly beading on his brow, a look of determined concentration on his face.

 

“Okay...how about _this_?” Then he does it again, but with his fingers crooked more inwards, and stars blind Keith’s vision.

 

“Ah!” His mouth falls open into a strangled, frozen cry, not caring about the words spilling from his lips when it feels so, _so_ incredible he can hardly breathe. “Yeah, there, there, yeah, just like...like that…keep doing that and don’t stop, oh my God...”

 

So Lance does it just like that, over and over with that goofy, pleased grin on his face, and Keith can’t help but think that, no matter what the circumstance, Lance will always be nothing but the world’s biggest suck-up and people pleaser - but for once, Keith is entirely, 100% okay with that.

 

He doesn’t last much longer, all the tension that’s built up finally unraveling, entire body heaving with the high that climbs higher and higher until he isn’t even sure what words are anymore, until he isn’t sure if he’ll be capable of coherent speech ever again. Lance leans forward suddenly through the most blistering heat of that climb, keeping up the steady pulsing motions he’s had going, and licks a messy, wet stripe up his shaft while peering coyly at him - and that’s it.

 

Keith comes lightning fast, so quickly that he doesn’t have the time to warn him. But Lance doesn’t seem particularly bothered by this, catching the full of it against his cheeks and forehead with a loud, drawn out moan of his own. Sticky clumps slide in thick streams down his entire face, which is how Keith finds him once he regains the ability to come back to reality and see without his vision doubling.

 

The sight alone is enough to make him want to ignore Lance’s limitations about overexerting himself and just pin him to the mattress, to ravage him in ways that have only presented themselves in the deepest, darkest desires of his wet dreams.

 

To kiss him and declare how much he loves him until Lance is an unraveled mess of his own.

 

“Now _that_!” Lance whoops with a small giggle, practically giving Keith another heart attack when he darts his tongue out to lick some of the mess off, “That’s a helluva lot more fun than almost dying, isn’t it?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

The sun has gone down, and still, they sit and watch the stars as they appear and twinkle brightly. The glow of them casts a softness upon Allura’s face, one that Shiro can’t help but be more entranced at than the stunning scene unfolding before them.

 

“Hey, Shiro.” Allura turns fully to look at him, sand shifting as realistically as if it were actually there beneath her. Her voice seems suddenly graver and more serious than usual, her eyes flickering with emotion like the end of an incense stick slowly burning out. “Is it...is it alright if I ask you a somewhat...personal question?”

 

He draws closer to her, the feel of reeds itching at his bare arm slightly unnerving to his still over-stimulated senses. The usual hyper-awareness after a fight, he thinks as he flicks at one and watches it stutter in its holographic program briefly. He doesn’t even want to move his Galra tech arm, wishes he could rip it off from his body. The less he’s reminded of the fact that it’s there, the more he can pretend it isn’t a part of him.

 

Adrenaline continues coursing high through his veins even though the danger is, for now, far enough away that he should be able to relax.

 

But that’s a silly thought within itself. It feels like he hasn’t been able to relax in centuries.

 

“Sure,” he replies, putting a tentative hand on her shoulder, warmth spreading through his palm when he makes contact. This is real. Skin-on-skin contact. “Sure, of course you can. Always feel free to ask me anything you want.”

 

She turns her gaze to the vast field of flowers stretched out before her and plucks one, fingering the petals in her hand. “The nightmares,” she says to the ground, to the air, anywhere but at him. “How do you...how do you deal with them?”

 

His hand falters in its grip, sliding down to her arm instead. Of all the questions she could have asked him, he’d have to say this was the least expected.

 

Guilt wracks him as his first thought automatically turns to being suspicious of how she knows about them. He thought that the darkness of night could cover that side of him in enough shadow that it wouldn’t ever be necessary to drag it into the ugly light of day. He’s taken great care to keep his emotions under control, to wake up in the aftermath of fear and pain and tremors so strong he feels the rattling of his bones against each other, and act like it’s nothing.  Once he steps through that sliding door out into the hall, there’s a line, a boundary in which he never brings it past.

 

When the door closes, so does he. It’s a rule he’s made for himself here, where he has to be the rock to guide so many others, sturdy and unbreakable in the eyes of those who look up to his supposed strength.

 

His screams have always been muffled into pillows, his panic attacks dealt with mostly alone in the cover of the bathroom where he tries to futilely let the water wash away the grime that’s settled over his thoughts. Feverish sweats are easily done away with an excuse of training for far too long as he dabs at the dampness with a towel, breathes slowly in and out - counts back from ten, only to repeat it again.

 

Though as far as he’s aware, he’s stopped waking up screaming, at least lately.

 

Allura _did_ have the place wired at one point, but he shakes his head of that thought almost immediately. No, it’s not her style to do something so invasive as to put cameras in their bedrooms.

 

He watches her clench the flower until the petals flake from it, one by one, and that’s when he realizes, a little sheepish that he didn’t think of this first - she knows because this is a shared pain, a trauma they both understand without words or physically peeking behind that door. She lifts what’s left of the flower to her nose and sniffs, brows furrowing when she undoubtedly is reminded that the junaberries here are never going to smell like anything but lost time and tainted memories.

 

His silence must have been going on for much longer than he’s been keeping tracking of, because Allura whips around to face him again, eyes clearly apologetic. “I’m sorry, you don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to. It’s fine, that was rather unprecedented of me to go there. I didn’t mean to bring up anything for you--”

 

Shiro shakes his head, brushing a thumb against her lip to silence her. It’s so nice, feeling the softness of it with this still human side of him, the sensitivity of genuine nerve endings catching the soothing heat radiating from her.

 

Deep down he knows it’s ridiculous, honestly, the lengths he goes to hide. Because the truth is, when it comes down to it, he’s now noticing that he breaks just as much as the rest of them.

 

“I think…” He gulps as he brushes her hair back from the nape of her neck, smoothes over another thick lock behind her ear, which she allows without protest. “I think about being safe.”

 

Allura cocks her head in question, subtly leaning into his touch. “Being safe…?”

 

“Yeah,” Shiro continues, finding it easier and easier to let Allura see this side of him with this connection that has been there all along between them. “I think about how when I wake up, I’m not locked up in that awful place anymore. I think about the warmth of the sheets, how they’re real and not tattered rags. I think about the bed, how it’s soft and not the cold hard floor of a cell. How I’m about to get up and be around good people, how I’m going to go eat a real meal and do the things I like to do...ah, if our schedule allows it.”

 

He chuckles a little, trying to lighten the mood when a shadow casts long upon Allura’s face.

 

It isn’t pity though, it’s ---

 

It’s something deeper, stronger, like empathy. He can see it in the way she looks like she’s connecting all the dots he’s drawing across her eyelids. There’s this unspeakable pain there, reflecting like a mirror into his soul.

 

And it pulls, twists something in him that he hasn’t felt in a long time.

 

 _Relief_.

 

“I think about being in Voltron as the nightmare starts to fade away. I think about the team, about people counting on me, about how much I care about everyone. I think of things that make me happy, that make all this worth fighting for, that make life worth living. Sometimes, though, I get angry about...” His voice cracks, uneven and weak, but he presses on. “I get angry and frustrated about the things they took from me, and I’m not just talking about my arm or my freedom.”

 

He knocks against his head, forcing a small smile as Allura’s frown deepens in worry.  “You know, my, uh, mental freedom. But...I learned that it’s okay to be angry too, because it also helps. I mean, the nightmares are still there, but it helps to feel that.”

 

Shiro pulls her in closer to him, lowers his voice to the most comforting semblance of a whisper he can manage. “It’s okay to be angry, Allura. It’s okay to let others take over and be in charge when you feel like the world is crumbling beneath you.”

 

His vision is blurring a little. There’s a pause, and Allura’s eyes keep searching him, keep grounding him. She moves a hand to his knee, tells him gently that it’s alright, that she understands, that he doesn’t have to say anything else.

 

But that isn’t it. That’s not the half of it, he thinks as her arms wrap around him and pull him tight against her chest. Her hands brush through his hair, her mouth whispers calming things into his ear.

 

She’s even careful not to jostle his metal arm somehow, because she’s Allura, and she’s beautiful, and she just _knows_ him. There’s so much warmth everywhere, so much feeling, and maybe dampness down his cheeks and -- and there’s more than he can ever express in words, more than he can ever really say aloud.

 

But there is always one thing above all else.

 

“But I, Allura…” He pulls in a deep breath, and it’s like that first breath of fresh air he took in the second he landed back on Earth again. “When all else fails, I think about you.”

 

Her hands pause, her murmuring stops. Time seems to freeze them that way, in the grass of a planet that no longer exists but in the memory of someone suffering just as much as him in the wake of so much pointless loss and violence and bullshit.

 

“I think about you, because it always works. It makes things better, and easier, and brighter. I think about you _so_ much--”

 

Then there’s her lips on his, the rustle of simulated wind opening a door and finally airing it all out, and even though this isn’t his home, he feels like he’s in a place that he can always come back to.  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [...if you go straight long enough you'll end up where you were](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsnELWjsCsA) :)
> 
>  
> 
> Haha, Lemon finally back with some rando Modest Mouse references and like, 10k of mostly smut and angst, because why the hell not. (I swear, if we were ever to seriously put together a playlist for this fic, it would be such a weird mix of things…)
> 
>    
> Anyway, I missed you all! Hopefully I will be updating regularly on my usual schedule again. Hope you all enjoyed it <3
> 
>  
> 
> i kno Lance and Keith sure did ha...ha.....


	21. Hunk Garrett's Day Off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An ending is sometimes the beginning of a new story, a rebirth, a second chance.

As the evening passes on into night, and the night fades into the following morning, they rebuild.

Lance and Keith return just a little bit disorganized—with Keith’s hair standing up sweaty and frizzy in many different directions, and Lance tugging up the collar of his suit over the dark marks dotting his throat. They’re fidgeting as Pidge sends them a disgusted scoff and tells them that Shiro and Allura still haven’t managed to come back either, and that Coran is nowhere to be found.

Everyone is determined to shrug off the responsibility of fixing this, she says. Everyone seems to think that if they ignore this glaring problem long enough, maybe it will all go away.

“Well, I’m taking a break,” she adds sharply, standing up and cracking her back, “Hunk, why don’t we leave some of this mess to these two lazy-asses for awhile?”

Lance scowls as though he’s going to retort, but Keith places a quiet hand on his shoulder. They share a look that Hunk doesn’t entirely understand—doesn’t even know if he wants to—and they start picking up random debris and setting it in designated piles: the stuff that they can salvage. The stuff that’s getting left behind.

It’s been nearly ten hours since the battle ended and they started cleaning up, and suddenly Hunk feels it. He stretches out his tired muscles, sends Keith and Lance an apologetic smile. Pidge wanders off somewhere toward the mangled remains of their rooms. Instead of sleep, he opts to grab breakfast.

He figures that a lot of jokes can be made about his urge to stuff his face while so many other things are going on, but his teammates just don’t know how to take care of themselves. Shiro suffers silently through so many things that he could work through if he’d decide to express them. Lance stuffs down his insecurities and seemingly survives off of that sustenance alone. Pidge goes days sometimes without even a wink of sleep, and there are far too many things to be said about Keith when his brain isn’t so fizzled out and exhausted.

He totters over shrapnel and notes the way that all of the broken machinery around him has finally stopped smoking. He shoves a hefty chunk of ceiling away from the doorway to the kitchen, clicks his tongue as he stumbles in to find the goo machine spitting endlessly all over the floor. It’s not as severe as last time—he still manages to get some on a cracked plate without further dirtying his dusty clothes. And he eats at the splintered table in the dining hall, on the remains of one of the only standing seats.

He listens to the wind whistling through the cracks in the ceiling, watches the white spots of stars moving slowly behind the clouds in the sky. There’s a gaping hole in the roof just overhead. There are popping wires coiled about the dead sentries all around the floor.

But this is home, he thinks. It’s lonely, and it’s soul-crushing, but still, it’s home.

He wonders if this journey would be easier if he’d found someone to depend on, like Keith and Lance, or Allura and Shiro. He wonders if the wandering of hands deep in the night, if the sweaty, desperate reaching out and clutching onto another person could fill the void of genuine human contact that he’s felt eating away at his insides for so long. If maybe Lance is surviving only because he has someone to hold onto. If maybe their team would crumble if they weren’t making due with what they have.

And he wonders if any of them would have found each other if things were different—if Keith and Lance could have ever gotten along, if Pidge would have ever considered them friends if she didn’t have to. If Shiro would have ever stopped being such an unreachable shadow just beyond all of their outstretched fingertips.

It’s sad, and it doesn’t really change anything. No matter how much he considers it, at the end of the day, they’re still going to be crammed together here on a desolate planet in a broken ship, forced to mend so much more than some splintered walls before they’re strong enough to keep pushing on.

He finishes his plate, at least feeling disgusted enough with this entire situation that he isn’t quite strong enough to go for seconds. When they first arrived in the castle and started eating the goo, it had felt similar to eating celery or watermelon, or something else that never quite managed to fill him up enough. He could have eaten the entire castle’s rations if he hadn’t stopped himself—and even still, he’s heard Lance complaining about it too: the food here isn’t anywhere near as comforting as the meals back home. Nights spent sleeping on the beds in their rooms never leave them feeling quite as awake as they used to.

The only things that actually manage to work better than what Earth provided are the showers, and even those leave him feeling a little too exposed and uncomfortable for his liking.

With a shake of his head, he leaves his plate on the table and scoots his chair back. It scrapes against the dirt and the pebbles on the floor, gets caught on a large piece of ceiling behind him. He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, craning his neck to peer up at the dark, open sky. He isn’t sure how long they’re going to be here. Pidge spoke about crafting some bots to help rebuild, but her nerves were even more shot than his when she’d left to take a break.

Allura, Coran, and Shiro are still missing. They’re still holed up wherever crew leaders decide to slink off to when they need time to be vulnerable.

And he really has no idea what to do with himself without Shiro’s watchful, comforting command.

He makes his way through the broken threshold into the hall, stumbling over the wreckage, trying to convince himself that it doesn’t bother him at all. He’s wandering blindly for a while, thinking about all of the work that they’ll have to do to get this place fixed up. He’s taking in the chilly air pushing through the holes in the walls, the far-off cries of creatures lurking in the woods around them. He’s breathing in the sting of winter air, allowing it to sit uncomfortable and far too heavy in his lungs. He wipes the cold sweat—the mixture of ash and dirt from his face and brushes it off on his pants. He nearly jumps out of his skin when his lazy, unfocused stare falls into one of the many busted rooms and finds the dark silhouette of someone else bathed in the inconsistent sparking of the lights overhead.

For a moment, he’s rooted to the spot. He allows his breathing to even out and waits until his heart stops thundering before he steps forward. He recognizes the lithe, stiff posture of Coran; the hands tucked behind his back, the broad shoulders. He’s peering out of the front window in what’s left of the control room. And if Hunk looks close enough, maybe it’s a trick of the light or his own imagination running wild, but he thinks that he can make out a slight tremble in his form.

His hands are clutching each other just a little too tightly behind his back. He’s far too focused on whatever he sees out there to hear Hunk coming in.

“Coran?” Hunk asks, quiet and careful, hoping not to scare him too much, “Are you okay, man?”

“Ah,” Coran says quietly, his voice a little rougher than Hunk expects it to be. He turns to acknowledge him with a nod of his head. “Number two. I wasn’t expecting you! How are repairs going?”

Hunk eyes him thoughtfully, thinking back to another time, another place where he can recall one of his mothers responding in a surprisingly similar manner. Whenever things got particularly rough, he always could sense it on her, as she’d grow distant, start a frenzy of unnecessary cleaning. Always being a rather private, reserved person, he’d find her that way later, sweat beading her furrowed brow as she mechanically folded and refolded clothes in silence. If he asked her what was wrong, she would never answer, would only give him a faint smile and ask him about his day like he hadn’t spoken at all.

His other mother once told him, with a comforting hand on his shoulder, that she just needed some time alone, some time to figure things out, and this was just how she worked when she got like this.

Hunk shakes himself of the thought of home. It won’t do him any good to dwell on that right now when clearly there are other people who need him.

“They’re…coming along, man,” Hunk reassures him with a shrug of his shoulders, stepping forward, eyes on the stars. “It’s not super important. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, if you’ve dealt with one insanely destructive aftermath of a Galra fight, you can deal with the possibility that we all could have died along with almost the entire castle being obliterated too, am I right?”

He clamps his mouth shut almost as soon as he says it, knowing that not everyone is as open as Lance is about appreciating his somewhat morbid jokes, but the ends of Coran’s lips quirk up into a small smile.

It doesn’t take long for the smile to turn sadder, a little lost. Coran heaves a sigh, squaring his shoulders as his eyes travel over a pile of debris by his feet.

“That is true, isn’t it?” he admits, and they both grow silent. It isn’t awkward so much as it’s peaceful, if a little melancholic. Hunk lets him do as he likes, shuffling over to a twisted hunk of metal and plopping down onto it to ease the soreness in his feet.

“You know,” Coran says softly, facing away from him, gaze set on the barren landscape of Rengaron, “King Alfor once told me that the greatest honor of my position here in the royal family was how intrinsic I was to keeping things in order, to keeping everyone safe.”

He doesn’t turn around as he speaks. Hunk doesn’t respond, as he is all too aware of when the dam of emotions swell to the point they have to give, one way or another.

“They all expected me to be optimistic, to provide an atmosphere where things were always set on the bright side, especially when all the conflict with Zarkon began to happen. Smiling was no longer an expression of how you felt, but essential to my career!”

As if in example, Hunk’s met with Coran’s usual cheery smile as he turns to him again, kicking at some rubble as he gives a small chuckle. He points his finger to the sky as he recalls it, this fondness settling behind his eyes that Hunk’s noticed him look at Allura with before.

“Protecting Allura was an important part of my job, you know, but she became much more to me than that. I took it all very seriously despite Alfor’s request to keep things light and impersonal, but I don’t regret it for a second. She’s been nothing short of something like a daughter to me.”

Coran’s face grows darker, a scowl surfacing across it. He runs a hand through his hair, as if frustrated with not just their situation, but with himself.

“But sometimes, you just...you just don’t feel much like laughing and smiling when you don’t want to anymore. And you...and you can’t always protect the ones you love, you know?”

Hunk scratches his head, flicks at a bug crawling nearby him. Never one to hold back on what’s at the forefront of his mind, he finally speaks up. “For what it’s worth, I think you’ve done a fantastic job of protecting us, dude.”

There’s a pause. Coran drops his hand and stares at him, grin faltering. He cocks his head, uncertain but looking extremely pleased by the compliment.

“...Really? You mean that?”

“Yeah, of course. Without you around, who would there be reminding us that in the end, everything’s going to be okay and work out?” Hunk laughs, drawing himself to his feet and stretching the aches from his body. “I mean, we sure as hell aren’t going to get that from someone like Keith or Pidge.”

Coran throws back his head and laughs - laughs until tears come to his eyes. And if maybe, those tears aren’t just from laughing, Hunk will continue to pretend he doesn’t notice.

“Oh, number two,” he manages, sniffling as he wipes his eyes, “You’ve got to give me a tip or two on your sense of Earth humor someday, it’s quite refreshing.”

Hunk doesn’t correct him about his name, only smiles and opens up his arms. He moves to meet Coran, drawing him into a huge hug.

And even though he squeaks at being squeezed a little too harshly, unlike the others, he doesn’t complain.

 

* * *

 

Shiro falls asleep against Allura’s shoulder, watching as the oranges and the pinks of the sunset fade into black through the thick cage of his heavy eyelashes. Allura is warm and soft, steady and safe against him. Her heartbeat pulses gradually between then—reminding him, again and again, that he’s reached out and touched another living thing.

That still, after all of this time, after every dangerous mission—somehow, they’re still alive.

He’s sleepy when he whispers his first _“I love you”_ , but Allura sounds perfectly awake when she responds.

There’s that beautiful, whimsical laughter. It’s like every lullaby that he loved as a child, wrapped up in the sweet honeysuckle of her soft voice. There are four words that send a warm jitter of nerves bouncing over the surface of his skin.

And there’s the feeling of her lips—so silky, so warm, so _alive_ _—_ against his forehead, and her long fingers combing through his hair.

“My father would have loved you,” She tells him gently, “Altea would have loved you.”

It’s hard to imagine anyone loving him how he is now. It’s difficult to envision anyone looking at the shabby shadow of a human that he’s become and finding anything worth appreciating. Especially someone like Allura—so pure and full of light. Especially someone like the father who she’s always admired, the man so strong that his memory alone has carried her through the hardest of times.

He smiles as he slips away, lead into sleep by the hum of her voice and the soft pounding of her heart vibrating through him.

“My mom will love you too,” he says, and she laughs again, she tells him to stop making plans.

But even still, he does. He dreams about a life with just himself and Allura living happily ever after—unbroken, unbound by responsibility.

Just the two of them falling asleep watching an Altean sunset, as though the chains that keep them grounded are really nothing at all.

 

* * *

 

They soon discover that, despite being so close to Lance’s room, Keith’s room has not fared nearly as well.

After Hunk and Pidge had excused themselves, Keith and Lance had worked on clearing the training deck for all of two seconds before they realized that it was no easy task to try with only two people - especially when the Christmas tree turned out to be a lot heavier than expected, and Lance may or may not have lost his grip on trying to lift it with Keith when he’d been too focused on the flex of Keith’s arm muscles, on the flush of his cheeks and sweat dripping down his neck instead.

After facing an endless stream of curses from him, Lance had spent an equally as long amount of time trying to defend himself, if only so Keith wouldn’t know the embarrassing truth behind it all.

Eventually exhausted from it all, from the arguing and sex and moving around heavy objects that were probably never meant to be moved by a human body, they’d ultimately decided it’d probably be better to try something smaller and more manageable between them, so, here they were.

And it’s nothing short of depressing seeing the giant crater in the center of Keith’s room, the charred remains of belongings Keith barely had in the first place. Honestly, Lance regrets ever having suggested it.

They move about through all of Keith’s broken things, littered among a mess of destruction that he’s sure will stay branded in the back of his brain for the rest of his life. Something about this is incredibly disturbing, even if he can’t quite put his finger on why.

Keith is moving fast, mechanical. He’s throwing things into the garbage pile with such a speed that Lance thinks he might be breaking things that weren’t already broken, just for the sake of getting this done as quickly as possible.

“You know,” Lance says quietly, eyes glued to the jagged corners of the ceiling in his hands if only so he won’t have to see whatever look is currently creasing Keith’s lips, “I… I don’t think this is the right time, but uh—”

He clears his throat, setting the piece to the side as gently as he can. Beneath it, there are the mangled pieces of some of Keith’s things—the few things that he’s actually managed to collect during their various missions, all in different states of ruin.

With a nervous, tittering sort of laugh, he picks up the crumbled remains of that cardboard box from before—a memory sitting so heavily in his heart, that feels as though it’s been decades now since it’s passed.

He wonders if anything inside has survived. If that photo, at the very least, is okay. He doesn’t feel quite strong enough to check.

Instead, he straightens out the sides as well as he can, and he sets it on top of the pile.

“I just—I just wanted to let you know, uh…” He can already feel the aggravation rolling off of Keith in waves. He doesn’t like when people beat around the bush. If he had it his way, everyone would be as blunt as possible, only saying what needed to be said in order to get the job done. Lance’s lips turn up in a sardonic smile. Somehow, even Keith’s impatience is cute. “Even if you are an alien, I’d still… want to be with you.”

Keith tenses up beside him, slamming down a few of his things hard enough that the crumbled remains that they’ve made into a table groan and quake.

Lance risks a look in his direction. He’s staring so intensely at the rubble in front of him that Lance feels that his gaze alone might burn the rest of the castle down. Ever-so-slightly, he trembles.

“What makes you think that I’m an alien?” he asks, “Why would you even say that?”

Lance bites the inside of his lip. He rolls his eyes up to the holes in the ceiling.

“I-I’m just saying,” he breathes, “I-I mean… you’d still date me if I were an alien, r-right?”

A long, tapered breath, and Keith is turning stony eyes in his direction. His shoulders squared, his face pale and hollowed out with exhaustion, he seems to be picking apart every inch of resolve that Lance has built around himself.

“I guess your weird attraction to alien girls would finally make sense,” he says, blowing his sweaty, filthy bangs out of his face, “But… I guess I’d be okay with it. It’s not like you’ve ever been _normal_ anyway.”

It’s a joke, he thinks. Keith is joking— _flirting,_ even. Keith isn’t exploding, he isn’t getting defensive. In this tense moment, among the ruins of the life that he’s built for himself, Lance has prodded at one of his sore spots and Keith has chosen to joke.

He thinks to himself, allowing a small laugh to escape him, that he’s never seen character development in real life before.

“I don’t really know what I am.” Keith says quietly—so quiet that Lance almost doesn’t hear him at all. He’s reaching over and grasping the edges of the cardboard box. He’s staring at it with so much remorse that Lance almost can’t handle staring at him for too long. “I have a knife and a photograph. I have a lot of cryptic bullshit that my mom told me when I was little. Even if he is an alien, I—”

Keith clears his throat, shoving the box hard into the pile. He turns away sharply, cocking his head to the side with a sharp breath. Lance reaches out, for a mere moment, intent on reaching out and comforting him, but then, he stops.

He watches the way that Keith trembles, the way that his shoulders struggle to carry the weight of the life he left behind. He wonders what could have possibly been bad enough to get him kicked out of the Garrison. He wonders if it was worth it, if Keith would do it all again, just like before.

He wonders what his life would have been like, always chasing after the phantom of a parent that never cared enough to stick around. He wonders what it would have felt like to truly be alone.

And he wonders, with an ache writhing right between his rib bones, if he could have survived even one day in the desert without anyone else to rely on.

“I—” Keith bites back the hitch in his words. He cocks his head back, and Lance knows that he’s glowering up at the night sky through the cracks in the ceiling, as though he might be able to cast his distaste for his father out into space and hope for it to someday reach him. “I’m not like him. Even if there’s a reason, I—I wouldn’t have left. You can’t just leave all of your mistakes behind like a coward, you—you have to own up to them. You—”

And finally, Lance does reach out. He grasps Keith by the shoulder, ignores the way that he flinches back. He pulls Keith into his arms, takes advantage of the small height difference between them to shove Keith’s face into the crook of his shoulder.

He says soothing words. He imagines that there’s a wetness against his shirt. He doesn’t know if that would make all of this better or worse. He doesn’t know how to help rebuild someone like Keith.

He isn’t even sure if Keith needs rebuilding at all.

But he pulls away a moment later, and he kisses Keith so gently that he hopes it can chase away all of his disappointment, all of his pain, all of his fears.

“L-listen, I—” He voice catches in his throat. He swallows down all of his insecurities. “I don’t think you’re a mistake, I—”

Keith is staring up at him—he’s so beautiful, even now, covered in dust and blood, sweat and grime. He’s sparkling like a diamond smeared with mud. He’s alight with his dangerous, captivating fire, even with the hint of tears in the corners of his eyes.

“I love you, so… I—I don’t think you’re a mistake. He was… he was an idiot for leaving you behind.”

Keith laughs, and he doesn’t know why he laughs, but then he’s laughing too. They’re laughing and they’re kissing, and they’re standing in the ruins of their current home, going through all of Keith’s broken things—

And somehow, that’s okay.

He’s come a long way, he thinks, just over such a small amount of time. From hatred, to begrudging friendship, from denial to finally admitting his small crush. From a crush to love, to holding Keith close and watching him finally unwind.

Nothing is really okay. Their ship is broken, their home is destroyed. They’re stranded on a foreign planet, he ate something akin to scorched tire for dinner the night before last night. Shiro and Allura are missing, Pidge is pissed. Keith might be an alien and his dad might be a high-ranking Galra soldier.

But Keith kisses him again, he holds him tight in his arms.

And despite everything, Lance feels like everything is going to be fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's it!
> 
> I have a few apologies before all is said and done. First and foremost, I'm 100% at fault for this final chapter being like... what, two months late? The "Curse of KTG" became a very real thing for a while there, let me tell you... When I first started this chapter, a member of my family died. I tried touching it a week later, another family member died, and I tried touching it a third time, and another family member died, so... I'm a little suspicious posting this now... hmm... But anyway, this was a short final chapter, but it seemed as though there wasn't a ton to tie up after all! It's been an amazing journey getting to know all of you, and I appreciate every single person who took the time to comment on this story and tell us what they thought! Thank you guys so, so much, from the bottom of our hearts!
> 
> Lemon pushing her way in here too, to say thanks so much for reading. We appreciate all the amazing feedback we've gotten!!! Also, [here's some self-indulgent doodles i made for this.](http://lemoninasin.tumblr.com/post/156650676522/some-random-self-indulgent-keith-thats-gay)

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to bug us about random fandom shit on tumblr! We're sluts for attention! 
> 
> Lemon: [lemoninasin.tumblr.com](http://lemoninasin.tumblr.com)
> 
> Moth: [curionabang.tumblr.com](http://curionabang.tumblr.com)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Keith's Shirt](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10425990) by [Betareil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Betareil/pseuds/Betareil), [Lrtvldtrt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lrtvldtrt/pseuds/Lrtvldtrt), [Sardonyx_xx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sardonyx_xx/pseuds/Sardonyx_xx)




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